


The Omni-Phichit

by NonDairyRay, shamarmon



Category: Yuri!!! on Ice (Anime)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Coffee Shops & Cafés, Alternate Universe - College/University, Alternate Universe - Royalty, Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Alternate Universe - Student/Teacher, Crack, Crack Treated Seriously, Drunkenness, Explicit Sexual Content, Funny, Humor, I'm Going to Hell, Language Kink, Language kink part 2: electric boogaloo, M/M, Social Media Abuse, Teacher-Student Relationship, Wingman Phichit Chulanont
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-03-23
Updated: 2017-05-05
Packaged: 2018-10-09 17:06:10
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 35,975
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10416936
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NonDairyRay/pseuds/NonDairyRay, https://archiveofourown.org/users/shamarmon/pseuds/shamarmon
Summary: Phichit wakes up one morning to find he has attained full sentience. He is then forced through his own personal hell of living through different genres of fanfiction, and the only way to move on is to get Yuuri and Victor together. Luckily, he is the (multi) universe’s greatest wingman!





	1. The Nightmare Begins

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Shamarmon- Woo hoo another story! This is not supposed to be a serious story at all, so I hope you have as much fun reading it as we did writing it! This idea came to me and my sister Nicole while we were drinking and talking about my other fics, and it made us laugh so here it is! Generally, Ray and I will be switching off writing chapters, but we all (including Nicole) come up with the ideas for chapters together. This one is mine, the next is Ray’s. 
> 
> This is rated E, and while it will be explicit at times, it will always be comedic and not actually sexy sorry ;_;
> 
> This chapter contains copious amounts of drinking and mentions of underage drinking.

Phichit threw his luggage down on his hotel bed. It was his first ever Grand Prix Final, and he couldn’t be more excited to be in Barcelona and competing with the best figure skaters in the world. 

Celestino texted him offering to buy him dinner, and he thought about refusing but ultimately decided to accept the offer. (Coaches didn’t order anything fun before a big competition, but he was also poor as shit, so…) Besides, Yuuri had already agreed to meet him at Sagrada Familia later for pictures, and the restaurant was nearby.

After getting dressed, he met Celestino in the lobby and they walked to the bar. Phichit pouted once they got there, because his coach had definitely made it seem like they were going for dinner, not so he could watch Celestino drink. Still, he devoured a salad and nervously checked his phone for texts from Yuuri. It wasn’t like his friend to completely ignore him. 

After he finished, he excused himself to try calling Yuuri. There was no answer. He went back in and Celestino was still at the bar, looking unconcerned. Phichit nervously walked around the bar for another 15 minutes, resisting the urge to call Yuuri again. If he didn’t pick up the first time, no subsequent calls would change that. Eventually, when he couldn’t take it anymore and his curfew was approaching, he called Yuuri one more time. Still no answer. Well, he still had a fun night ahead of him, Yuuri or not. “I’m going to Sagrada Familia!” he called to his coach, who barely looked up from his cocktail, just waving. 

The walk to the landmark was short, and he wasted no time in finding the perfect selfie light. He took a bunch, just to be sure, but he found that the first picture was the best. He uploaded it immediately and reveled in the likes pouring into his phone. 

He went back to his room and sat on the bed, checked up on all social media (just in case), and then thought about calling Yuuri again. He wasn’t mad that he had bailed on him (it happened all the time and Phichit was aware that it was almost never malicious), but he was curious about what was going on with his best friend. He knew Yuuri had already landed in Barcelona because he saw the incredible pictures Victor and Chris had posted from the pool. Before long, his thoughts were interrupted by a text. 

**Yuuri Katsuki:** _Can I call you?_

Phichit sighed and called his best friend. Knowing Yuuri, he was freaking out about something Victor-related. Again. He picked up on the second ring. 

“Phichit?” he heard.

“Yes, Yuuri, I’m here. What do you need?”

“Ah, it’s not important, sorry for bailing on Sagrada Familia, I fell asleep. And sorry for bothering you this late at night…”

Phichit briefly contemplated letting Yuuri not actually talk about it, but he was a great best friend and he knew that something was wrong. He shook out his hand, which must’ve fallen asleep from sitting on the bed weird, and said, “No, Yuuri, it must be important if you asked! What’s wrong?” _I bet it’s about Victor._

“Um, well, okay. It’s about Victor.”

 _Nailed it._ “What about him? He didn’t do anything bad, did he?” Phichit asked, ready to jump off of bed and do something about it. 

“What? No!”

“Good,” Phichit said. It was technically past his curfew, anyway, and adding an angry Celestino to the equation wouldn’t really help. 

“It’s just, his birthday is coming up, and I don’t know what to get him.”

“I’m sure he’ll like anything you give him,” Phichit said easily. Man, how was his hand still asleep? He shook it harder. “I mean, what does he like?”

“Skating,” Yuuri said.

“What a great insight,” Phichit joked. “Outside of skating?”

“I don’t know,” Yuuri whined. “I can’t think of anything he doesn’t have! He has way too much money to not buy everything he wants.”

“That sounds like Victor,” he replied with a quick laugh. “Hmm, give me a second to think.” Phichit wracked his brain, and a few things came to mind. 

“Victor likes food, right? Like katsudon and stuff?”

“Yeah,” Yuuri sighed, “but I can’t very well just take him to a restaurant as a gift, can I? And I have no place to cook while we’re here in the hotel.”

“Okay, okay,” Phichit said. “He also likes dogs.”

“I can’t get him another dog, Phichit.”

“Why not? That would be so cute!”

“Because a dog is a big decision! One that you make yourself! It would be a lot of work for him!”

“Fine! How about something for Makkachin?” he asked.

“It’s Victor’s birthday, not Makkachin’s,” Yuuri said. Phichit could practically hear his frown.

“Well, I only have one idea left, and you’re not going to like it,” Phichit said. 

“Just tell me!” Yuuri said. “I’m getting desperate here!”

“Well, the only other thing I can think of that Victor likes…” Phichit trailed off. 

“What?”

“It’s you. He likes you.”

Yuuri gasped and Phichit sighed. “I said you wouldn’t like it…”

“Thank you, Phichit! That’s perfect!” Yuuri said quickly. “I know exactly what to get him, now! I just have to find a place that sells it. You’re the best!” he said. “Oh wait, here comes Victor now,” he said, hanging up. 

“You’re welcome,” Phichit said to his empty phone screen. _That was weird,_ he thought. He shrugged and went back on Twitter. He still had half an hour before he would have to get ready for bed.

* * *

The next afternoon Phichit had a good practice and was feeling confident about the Short Program the next day. Celestino agreed, which only bolstered Phichit’s confidence. 

He went back to his room, scrolled through Twitter, and then took a well-deserved shower. Once he was caught up, he laid back on his bed. He didn’t really have any plans tonight, so maybe he could order room service and watch a movie? It seemed like a bit of a wasted night in an exciting foreign city, but he assumed all of the other skaters would also be resting up to be ready for tomorrow. 

**Victor Nikiforov:** _Skater’s dinner tonight! Here’s the place:_

 **Victor Nikiforov:** _La Tagliatella, Diagonal Mar Shopping Mall, Avinguda Diagonal, 3_

Phichit grinned. He could stay in another time; there was no chance he was missing this. He grabbed his jacket and headed out. 

Apparently all of the skaters were there (except JJ, but nobody really counted him), and even Mari and Minako joined them. And it looked like Phichit had no reason to be worried about Yuuri: his best friend was happily sitting next to Victor like he hadn’t been freaking out last night. Phichit was happy for him.

Yuuri was saying something about how he couldn’t even talk to Victor at last year’s Grand Prix Final, and Victor did a spit-take. This was also news to Phichit, who wasn’t close enough with anyone last year to know any more than what Yuuri told him. Apparently, Yuuri got completely smashed on champagne, did a strip-tease and pole dancing with Chris, challenged Yurio to a dance off, and seduced Victor. 

Phichit watched Victor’s shocked face and felt sympathy for him. Apparently, they had both been in love with each other for a long time. It was a real shame no one could’ve pushed them together sooner. Oh well, at least now that Phichit knew, he could help Yuuri with his love life after the Final. He shook his hand, realizing he must’ve been gripping his glass too hard, as it was feeling a bit tingly. 

Thankfully, Chris showed him some videos of the night from next to him at the table. Phichit watched in shock. That certainly didn’t look like something Yuuri would do, but then again, Phichit had seen Yuuri drunk at a few parties in Detroit and something similar sometimes ended up happening. 

As Phichit was still examining the evidence (and stealthily sending it to his own phone), Chris asked something about rings. Phichit glanced up from the phone to see Yuuri sheepishly holding up his right hand next to Victor’s, who confirmed they were a pair. 

Suddenly, everything clicked into place for Phichit. Their phone call earlier had ended because Yuuri knew exactly what to get for Victor. Phichit just hadn’t known that he was talking about a _wedding ring!_

Ignoring the protest of his stomach, Phichit had no choice but to stand up and loudly congratulate them, then announce their marriage to the whole restaurant. Yuuri looked like he was going to die of embarrassment, but Phichit knew that his best friend wouldn’t tell anyone about this if he wasn’t forced to. Better to get it out in the open now.

Victor showed off his ring, informing everyone that they were _engagement_ rings, not wedding rings. Phichit took it in stride, happy that they weren’t denying the significance of the rings. _And good on you, Victor,_ he thought, staring at his best friend’s fiancé, _Yuuri would only buy one ring, were you just carrying that around?_

He abruptly sat back down as his stomach started lurching even harder. He hadn’t eaten anything weird for dinner, so why was he feeling like this? He took one more look at Yuuri and Victor, and then suddenly, everything went black.

* * *

Phichit woke up in his bed. He stared up at the ceiling for a few minutes, trying to piece together the weird day he just had. Or was it a dream? He had been in Barcelona for the Grand Prix Final, and Yuuri and Victor got married. Wait, no, they got engaged. 

Still, everything seemed a bit like a dream because of the abrupt ending. He couldn't remember anything after being at dinner. Come to think of it, he couldn't even remember leaving dinner. He seriously hoped that the random memory loss was due to something other than blacking out from drinking, because today was the free skate…

Phichit shot upwards. Today was the free skate! He threw his legs over the edge of the bed, then stopped suddenly. This wasn't his hotel room. He hadn't noticed at first, but he was in his old dorm room. 

_This is more than a little strange,_ Phichit thought slowly. _I should be in a hotel in Barcelona, not my dorm. And even if I'm in Detroit, I should be in my apartment, not my old dorm room. ___

He reached for his phone to check the time. 11:32am. He had missed his practice by a while, but if he was in Detroit it didn't matter when he woke up, there was no way he was making it to the rink on time.

He pushed down the rising feeling of panic welling up in his chest and tried to think rationally, but there was no way he blacked out at dinner in Barcelona and woke up in his old room in Detroit. Even if he had been kidnapped, which would be horrible and bizarre, it was unlikely he would end up in his exact old dorm room alone. And from looking around, this was definitely his old dorm room, but it looked like he and Yuuri were currently living there. 

Yuuri! He might know what was going on. Phichit looked over to Yuuri’s side of the room, but all he saw was the startling lack of the many posters of Victor that were usually there. _Is it creepy that Yuuri had posters of his fiancé?_ Phichit thought before he returned his mind to the task at hand: finding out what the fuck was going on. 

Phichit was about to get out of bed and investigate when he heard the lock on the door click open and Yuuri walked in, two coffee cups in hand. 

“I know it's a Saturday, but this is late, even for you,” Yuuri said, putting down the coffee and shrugging off his coat.

Phichit frowned at him. “That's all you have to say about this?” he asked, shifting his body weight to take pressure off his hands, which were beginning to fall asleep. 

Yuuri frowned right back. “About what? The fact that it's the first weekend in the semester and you're already slacking off?”

Phichit sighed. “Are you serious? Can we please talk about how I woke up here in Detroit? And not in Barcelona? You were there, too!”

Yuuri narrowed his eyes. “Are you still drunk? Barcelona? No, you went to a party here. In Detroit. Where you live. So you woke up here.”

The panic that Phichit had pushed down earlier came back stronger. “Well, yeah I live in Detroit. But not with you anymore!” 

Yuuri rolled his eyes. “Um, yes, you do. For the past 4 years.”

Phichit started rocking back and forth, trying to shake out the static he was feeling in his hands. Half his thoughts were, _Did I sleep on my hands weird? Was I even asleep?_ and the other half of this thoughts were _Shit, oh shit, oh shit, no no no._

“What do you mean? You graduated college and moved back to Japan,” Phichit said.

“I'm pretty sure I would remember graduating,” Yuuri said with a snort. 

Phichit decided to try a different angle. “So you don't remember getting engaged to Victor last night?”

“Victor?” Yuuri asked. 

That's when Phichit knew something was seriously wrong. Everything else could be explained away, but there was no way Yuuri didn't know who Victor was.

“You know, Victor Nikiforov? Your childhood idol?” Phichit asked. The tingling in his hands kept getting worse, but he continued pressing Yuuri when all he got was a blank stare. “Hot Russian man? Famous figure skater? Blue eyes, silver hair? Is this really not ringing any bells?”

Yuuri thought for a moment, then clapped his hands. “Did you mean grey hair?”

Phichit shrugged. “That's really not the point here, Yuuri.”

Yuuri waved him off. “Are you talking about the hot guy from English? If you knew his name, why didn't you tell me?”

Phichit wasted no time saying, “Because he's not the hot guy from English! He's your fiancé! Your figure skating coach!” The tingling in his hands increased to the point that he almost couldn't keep ignoring it. 

Yuuri frowned at him. “Really, Phichit, what did you drink last night? You're acting so weird.”

Phichit opened his mouth to protest again, when everything went black.

* * *

Phichit’s eyes shot open. He stared at the ceiling, willing it to be the hotel ceiling back in Barcelona. However, before he turned, he knew it was really his old college dorm room in Detroit. He would know, he was in this exact situation what felt like a few minutes ago. However, he still had no idea what was going on. Was the previous conversation with Yuuri a bad dream? Was Barcelona a dream? Was _this_ a dream?

He turned and checked his phone. 11:32am. Again. That was weird. 

_Okay, what is going on? Did I black out again? Am I hallucinating? Am I in a coma? Come on, Phichit, think…_

Someone fiddled with the lock and Yuuri came in, holding two cups of coffee. “I know it's a Saturday, but this is late, even for you,” he said, putting down the coffee and taking off his coat.

Phichit’s heart sank. “Didn't we just have this conversation?” he asked. “Like, yesterday?” His fingers started tingling. 

Yuuri frowned at him. “No, I don't think so.”

“Shit,” Phichit said. “What's going on?!”

“Are you still drunk?” Yuuri asked. 

“No!” Phichit yelled. His fingers were tingling harder now. 

Yuuri narrowed his eyes. “You're acting really weird. Are you okay?”

“I'm definitely not! I have no idea what's going on!” Phichit said, getting desperate. “You're supposed to be marrying Victor, not back at school!”

“Are you sure you're okay?” Yuuri asked. “I don't even know who Victor is, I can't be marrying him.”

“The hot guy from English?” Phichit offered. 

Yuuri's blush was immediate. “Oh, so his name is Victor. Why didn't you tell me?”

Phichit sighed. “Because this makes no sense and he's your fiancé and I think I'm stuck in a recurring nightmare.” The tingling in his fingers increased. 

“You really don't sound like yourself,” Yuuri said, looking at him with concern. “Are you sure you're okay?”

Phichit’s fingers only tingled more as he said, “Of course I'm not okay,” and then everything went black again.

* * *

Phichit slowly opened his eyes. He stared up at the ceiling that he was now all too familiar with and shut his eyes again. Maybe if he went back to sleep, this would all go away…

He heard the door open and he sighed, sitting up. He checked his phone for the time, and he wasn't even surprised that it was 11:32am. 

“I know it's a Saturday, but this is late, even for you,” Yuuri said, putting down his cups of coffee and taking off his coat as he entered the room.

“What can I say,” Phichit said. He moved to shake out his hand but found it wasn't tingling. This was different. 

“Well, you could start with how the party was,” Yuuri said with a laugh. 

“Oh. The party. Yeah, it was great,” Phichit said. _Fuck it._ He decided he had nothing to lose, so he’d play whatever game this was. “Hey, you know that hot guy from English?” he asked suddenly. 

Yuuri blushed immediately. “Um, yeah.”

“Well, have you tried talking to him? Like, ever?”

Yuuri rolled his eyes. “Of course not. He’s way out of my league.”

Phichit rolled his eyes back at his best friend, because it was obviously still Yuuri, no matter the other weird circumstances. “How exactly is that?”

“Well, he's handsome, and smart, and popular…” Yuuri started. 

“You're handsome and smart and popular,” Phichit countered. When Yuuri raised his eyebrows, Phichit sighed. “You're too hard on yourself, you're more handsome and popular than you give yourself credit for.”

“Not smart?” Yuuri asked with a smile. 

Phichit smiled back. “Not at the moment; I'll reevaluate tomorrow. But trust me, Victor isn't out of your league.”

Yuuri frowned. “Victor? Oh, is that his name?”

Phichit had been so wrapped up in talking to Yuuri that he forgot this was… whatever it was. Not normal. “Uh,” he eloquently said. The tingling was back in his fingers. “I, uh, I met him at the party last night! Yeah!”

Yuuri narrowed his eyes. “How did you recognize him without talking to him? Oh my god! You talked to him! You didn't tell him about me, did you?”

“Of course not!” Phichit said. “No, I, uh, just knew who he was from your descriptions? You talk about him enough,” he guessed.

Yuuri nodded slowly and the tingling went away from his fingers. “Okay, then. That makes sense. You would know what he looks like, I forgot. So his name is Victor.”

“Yes,” Phichit said in relief. “And I totally think you guys would hit it off.” He might as well enjoy himself, and being Yuuri’s wingman was one of his specialties. Plus, it didn't hurt to know that Yuuri and Victor really would hit it off, if this Victor was anything like the real Victor. _That's a weird thought._

Yuuri shrugged. “I don't think so, he's so gorgeous and I'm so…”

“You're also gorgeous,” Phichit said confidently. “Please, just try talking to him? For me?”

Yuuri nodded. It was hesitantly, but he nodded. “Okay, I will on Monday.”

Phichit smiled. “I'm glad to hear it.”

Yuuri motioned to the coffee. “I have to go to a study group, but I brought you a coffee. You know, for the hangover.”

“Oh, right. Thanks,” Phichit said, realizing he was still sitting in bed. “Well, I'll see you!”

Yuuri closed the door behind him and Phichit fell back into his bed. He tried to think really hard about what was going on, but it was hard to be rational about something so strange. 

He had definitely been in Barcelona, ready to skate in his first Grand Prix Final. That had to have been real, because he had trained so hard and for so long. Then, he had blacked out. 

He was also definitely in Detroit in his old college dorm room right now. He pinched himself. It was definitely not a dream. Glancing down at his phone, he was startled to see that the date was in January, not December. That was different. He also looked around the room again. It was slightly different from before: no Victor posters, no pictures of either of them skating. And Yuuri had no idea who Victor was. Thankfully, his hamsters were still here. 

Phichit felt a little bit calmer going over the facts, but he still had no clue what was actually going on. What had happened that moved him from Barcelona to Detroit in what seemed like a second? And why were things different?

Finally, there was the odd tingling sensation in his fingers. He had thought that it was because of his sleeping positions or something, but it was coming and going at weird times. Now that he thought about it, it had come whenever he made Yuuri confused and talked about his real life, and went away when he played along with this Yuuri’s life. And every time he blacked out again and woke up in this bed, his fingers had been tingling a lot. 

While none of this made any sense, he still had an idea of what he could do to keep moving forward. Just play along with this weird reality. Phichit could do that. It was better than blacking out every few minutes and starting over. 

With a heavy sigh, he swung his legs out of bed and walked around their dorm room. From looking at his own notebooks, he was still a senior journalism major. Peeking into Yuuri’s notes, he was still a linguistics major, but Phichit couldn't tell the year. He was probably a senior, though, as Yuuri had graduated before Phichit’s senior year in his real life. 

As hard as Phichit looked, he couldn't find any figure skating gear or even any evidence that they skated. Quickly scrolling through the photos on his phone, he found countless selfies and pictures with friends but nothing on the rink. There was no way he had dreamed being a figure skater for his whole life, but freaking out again wouldn't help him. 

He decided to take a walk and try to relax. He grabbed his jacket and shoes and wandered out to the quad outside their dorm. The familiar grassy areas populated with students was calming, and Phichit picked a bench to sit down on. He watched the people pass by and even waved to a few people he recognized. After a while, he even felt well enough to go on Twitter. Despite his lack of skating in this… whatever it was… he was still popular online, and for that he was thankful. He even laughed at some of his own Tweets that he definitely didn’t write last time. 

**@phichit+chu:** Definitely didn't just show up to Friday 8am office hours still drunk…

 **@phichit+chu:** “I’ll have a shot of tequila, please. Because I hate myself.”- #TwitterlessYuuri

 **@phichit+chu:** “Moths don’t crawl”- #TwitterlessYuuri

 **@phichit+chu:** You ever get so tired that you see a picture of queso on Twitter and start crying?  
Yeah me neither

 **@phichit+chu:** “Half my calories are alcohol. That’s ok.”- #TwitterlessYuuri

 **@phichit+chu:** Freshman year professors: COLLEGE IS SERIOUS AND SO ARE WE!  
Senior year professors: Can someone email me the lecture slides for today?

 **@phichit+chu:** “What’s the bare minimum I need to do to stay on track, and how do I cope when I don’t get that done?”- #TwitterlessYuuri on senioritis

 **@phichit+chu:** Definitely didn’t just get trashed, eat four hot pockets, and order a $50 eyeshadow palette off Sephora and not remember any of it… #Fab

 **@phichit+chu:** Nothing like waking up to the soul-crushing despair of your roommate eating your last bagel #Callout #TwitterlessYuuri

 **@phichit+chu:** Me- “You gotta be your own bae before you can be someone else’s, you know?”  
TA- “That’s deep but did you finish your paper or not”

 **@phichit+chu:** “Showers cleanse your body while beers cleanse your mind. Which is why both at the same time is life changing”- #TwitterlessYuuri

 **@phichit+chu:** Definitely didn’t just write a paper on my phone in Google docs at the bar and submit it at 11:55pm…

 **@phichit+chu:** “I dropped my phone in the toilet and prayed for it to be okay in 3 different languages”- #TwitterlessYuuri

 **@phichit+chu:** #TwitterlessYuuri- “So now that everyone’s seen my ass, how’s your day going?”  
Me- “Better now ;)”

 **@phichit+chu:** “I’m not your beer wench, motherfucker”- #TwitterlessYuuri

 **@phichit+chu:** “I can suppress my gag reflex with a couple shots. That’s why I’m a better lay drunk than sober”- #TwitterlessYuuri

Phichit snickered at his phone. Not ice skating really made him and Yuuri normal, wild, and messy drunken college students. He decided to find it more funny than horrifying. 

He was roused from his thought by a familiar sound. He looked up and saw Victor and Chris walking past him, heads bent down low and laughing about something. 

Without thinking, he jumped up and yelled, “Hey!”

They stopped and turned to look at him, confused smiles on their faces. After quickly looking around to verify that Phichit was indeed talking to them, Victor hesitantly said, “Uh, hey… you. I don’t believe we’ve met.”

Phichit almost slapped himself with his slightly tingling hands. Of course they wouldn’t know him. He was surprised to see them at the college in the first place, although he guessed he had talked to Yuuri about it this morning…

He realized he was just staring at them dumbly, and Victor was starting to get uncomfortable. “Ah, sorry! I’m Phichit, you must be Victor and Chris.”

A look of relief flashed over Victor’s face and he smiled. “Oh, you must be a fan.” _And not a creep_ went unsaid. Chris gave him a quick elbow to the ribs and rolled his eyes, but he didn’t say anything.

“Oh, yeah,” Phichit said, thinking fast. Would they still be figure skaters? “I’m a big fan of… competitive figure skating?”

Victor was still smiling, so he figured he was safe, and the tingling in his fingers subsided. “Ah, good to hear. Would you like a photo?” Victor asked. 

“Ah, no thanks, I’m good,” Phichit said. “I’ll let you two get back to it, I guess.”

“Okay?” Victor said, dragging his friend away. Chris waved happily and winked as they walked the other direction. 

Phichit collapsed onto the bench with a sigh. This was really hard to navigate; everything was just different enough that it was throwing him off. His phone buzzed with a new text.

 **Yuuri Katsuki:** _Dinner? I’ll order pizza_

Phichit grinned and responded quickly.

 **Phichit Chulanont:** _Double pineapple please_

 **Yuuri Katsuki:** _You’re disgusting_

 **Phichit Chulanont:** _Excuse you I’m a gift_

 **Yuuri Katsuki:** _You can pay for your own gross pizza_

 **Phichit Chulanont:** _Nah I bought your gross pizza last time_

 **Yuuri Katsuki:** _My pizza is delicious_

 **Phichit Chulanont:** _You put corn on it, Yuuri_

 **Phichit Chulanont:** _CORN!!!_

 **Yuuri Katsuki:** _Whatever I’ll buy this time_

 **Phichit Chulanont:** _(ﾉ´ヮ`)ﾉ*: ･ﾟ_

* * *

It turned out that staying in and ordering pizza with Yuuri just meant getting silly drunk in their dorm room, which Phichit was totally fine with. During the ice skating season he wasn't allowed to drink at all, but what was the harm of drinking when he wasn’t a skater? He still had no more explanations about what was happening to him, but the alcohol helped him feel less worried about it. 

He had never really been able to get drunk with Yuuri in the past, as Phichit wasn’t 21 when Yuuri graduated college. Phichit never let the law stop him before, but because both of them had dry seasons for most of the school year, there were never many opportunities for the two of them to go crazy together. 

Phichit always thought of Yuuri as a fun person, but a few drinks in, he became a completely different and unreserved person. He supposed this was why Yuuri acted the way he did at the banquet, but Phichit abandoned that train of thought so he wouldn’t have to dwell on what was going on. Instead, he focused on how he was about to lose _another_ round of “Don’t drink and drive” in Mario Kart.

“How are you so good at this?” Phichit asked, moving his controller to one hand and moving to pick up his beer can. 

Yuuri slapped his hand away, eyes still glued to the screen. “It’s not my fault you’re terrible at this, and don’t cheat! You can only drink or drive, you know that.”

Phichit sighed and opted to drive, immediately falling off a cliff. He sighed again and decided he was better at the drinking portion, so he grabbed his beer instead. 

Yuuri had already chugged his own beer and was currently lapping him. Phichit just sipped his beer and smiled at his best friend, who was clearly having an amazing time. Phichit was simply glad to spend time like this with Yuuri. He had missed him when he moved back to Japan, and school wasn’t the same without him. 

Yuuri easily won that round, and they finally decided to play something else that Phichit had a chance of winning. Phichit vetoed “Never have I ever” (he had no idea what this crazy liberated Phichit hadn’t done, but he had a feeling it wasn’t a lot) and they settled on “Truth or Dare.”

“Truth,” Yuuri said first, cradling another beer.

“Aren’t you supposed to ask me?” Phichit asked, feeling warm and fuzzy from the alcohol. 

“I don’t care,” Yuuri said, slightly slurring his words. “Truth.”

“Fine,” Phichit said. He thought for a moment, then said, “Admit you have a huge crush on Victor- hot guy from English.”

Yuuri frowned at him from over his beer can. “That’s not a question.”

“I don’t care,” Phichit said with a grin. 

Yuuri sighed dramatically. “Look, Phichit. Just because I think he’s super hot, and I dream about kissing him, and whether he likes dogs or not, and what he would look like naked with my legs wrapped…”

“Whoa, I’m gonna stop you right there,” Phichit said, throwing his hands up. He knew that Yuuri and Victor must have been… intimate… in whatever universe he was in before, but he certainly did not need to hear the details. “No need to be quite so honest.”

Yuuri shrugged. “I’m drunk,” he offered, taking another sip. 

“Well, I think you guys would make a good couple,” Phichit said, taking a sip of his own beer. “Like, really good. And I’m sure he likes dogs, too.”

Yuuri narrowed his eyes. “And how would you know that? Are you guys secretly friends or something?”

 _Shit._ “Um, no way! I just saw him take out his phone at the party, and his background was of him and a dog?” he tried. The tingling in his fingers was starting to come back. He knew for a fact that the real Victor’s phone background was a picture of him and Yuuri, so he hoped that Makkachin would be next in line for the honor. 

Luckily, Yuuri seemed to accept this excuse. He sighed yet again and slipped lower onto the floor. “Phichit. He’s just. So damn hot.”

Phichit chuckled. “Yeah, I guess he is. Which is why you should talk to him on Monday!”

“Will you help me?” Yuuri asked, flashing Phichit his best puppy dog eyes. “I can’t do it on my own.”

Phichit almost said no, but a combination of his fingers tingling and Yuuri’s pathetic look made him say yes. The tingling went away immediately, which would have alerted a more sober Phichit to the real reason he was here, but instead he let Yuuri give him a huge hug. Now that he thought about it, he didn’t know how he was supposed to help Yuuri, but he supposed he could still try. He was a damn good wingman.

* * *

Phichit spent most of Sunday regretting Saturday night. It wasn't until he choked down some instant ramen for dinner that he realized he probably had to go to class the next day. 

Even though he was convinced he was stuck in some sort of alternate universe, it probably wasn't good to completely ignore his responsibilities in this universe. With a heavy heart he logged onto his school’s website and checked what assignments he had due. Luckily, he had already done them in his own universe, so they weren't too hard. 

Yuuri seemed to be in the same situation, and they both quietly lounged around the room all day until it was time to go to bed. 

Phichit lay awake in his bed, contemplating what was happening to him. He figured he was stuck in some kind of alternate universe, but he didn't know how to go back to his own. All he knew was that acting out of line for this universe would send him back to the beginning, and he didn't want that. He had no idea how long he would be here, and as his mind raced, he finally fell asleep and dreamed about ice skating.

* * *

Yuuri shook Phichit awake early on Monday morning. He groaned as his best friend yelled at him about missing class. 

Phichit opened one eye to check the time on his phone. 8 ‘oclock AM. “Ok, no offense, but what the fuck, Yuuri?” Phichit asked, flopping onto his other side to face the wall. “You know I don’t have class until noon on Mondays.”

Yuuri sighed. “And you know that we have English together at 8:30 on Mondays. Don’t tell me you’ve forgotten?”

Phichit groaned again and covered his head with his blanket. He didn’t have this class on Monday mornings in his own universe. As a second semester senior he made sure he had no class on Fridays and Monday mornings. “Are you sure?” he croaked.

Yuuri snorted. “Yes I’m sure. Now get out of bed and put some halfway decent clothes on. You know a quarter of your grade is participation.”

“What is this, high school?”

“No, it’s professional writing. So equally horrible.”

Phichit rolled out of bed with a valiant effort and found a pair of sweatpants he had only worn once and kept his pajama t-shirt on. This was an alternate reality, what did it matter who he impressed?

They walked to class together a few minutes later, and Phichit sported a large pair of sunglasses even though the sun was barely up. He pretended it was a last-ditch attempt to be fashionable instead of a necessity due to his barely lingering hangover (which was a little embarrassing because he drank two days ago but whatever). 

They rolled into class exactly a minute before it was supposed to start, and Yuuri steered them towards seats at the back of the room, which Phichit assumed were their regular seats away from the professor. However, as soon as he sat down, he realized the real reason. 

His view wasn’t perfect, but he had a very good view of the back of Victor Nikiforov’s head. Phichit would be willing to bet money that Yuuri’s seat had an even better view. He resisted the urge to tease him about it, since the professor was clearing her throat to start the class.

Phichit spaced out for most of her speech, and he only started to pay attention again when she mentioned “partners.” 

“We went over the guidelines for this project,” the professor said, “and now we’re going to actually start working on it! If you’re in the first row, please turn around and you’ll be making eye contact with your new partner! Then, the third row, then fifth row, and so on. I hope you picked your seats wisely today!” she said with a wink.

Phichit looked on in horror as Victor turned around and made eye contact with him. Yuuri had given himself a seat that let him stare at the profile of Victor, not just the back of his head, so Yuuri was actually paired with Chris, who was sitting next to Victor. 

Phichit smiled widely at Victor, then motioned for him to lean in. Victor blinked, but did as Phichit asked. “Hey, I have a _huge_ crush on your friend,” Phichit whispered, jabbing a thumb at Chris. “Could we switch partners? I promise my roommate is cool, and he’s much better at English papers than me.” Phichit didn’t think twice about telling the lies (while Chris was hot, Phichit felt nothing for him, and anyone who thought that Yuuri could outwrite a journalism major was crazy). 

“Oh, uh, sure, I guess I don’t mind,” Victor said, glancing at Yuuri from beneath his eyelashes. Phichit almost gagged, because the attraction was so _obvious,_ but he just thanked Victor and made a show of getting a tissue, then texting Yuuri while out in the hallway blowing his nose. Luckily, the whole class was buzzing with meeting their new partners.

 **Phichit Chulanont:** _If you’ve ever once trusted me in your life, PLEASE switch seats with me, right now_

When he came back into the classroom, Yuuri was looking very confused and awestruck but he was in the other seat, so Phichit grinned and settled in behind Chris. “Hey there, partner,” he said with a wink. “I hope you don’t mind the switch, but…”

Chris smiled back at him. “I don’t mind at all, I think I know why you did it, and I approve wholeheartedly,” he said, his eyes sparkling. “And I'm sorry for the way Victor treated you a few days ago, he didn't recognize you from class like I did.”

“That's totally fine,” Phichit said. “Now, I’m a journalism major, so I know a thing or two about professional writing…”

* * *

Phichit and Yuuri walked back to their dorm room after English, and Yuuri buried his face in his hands. “I can’t believe this,” he murmured. 

“Yeah, I know,” Phichit said with a snort. “Professional Writing is such a stupid class! Like, I know how to do all of this already. And I think our professor is literally crazy.”

“No! I mean, I can’t believe you made me be partners with Victor!” Yuuri said, peeking at Phichit from behind his fingers. 

Phichit wrapped an arm around his best friend as they walked. “Are you mad that I did?” he asked with a grin. 

“No,” Yuuri sighed. “I just don’t think it’ll work out?”

WIth a frown, Phichit asked, “You two or the project?”

“I know the project will be fine,” Yuuri said, “I just don’t think anything will happen between us like you think.”

Phichit made them stop, then forced Yuuri to look at him. “Yuuri! I know it will! You’re totally Victor’s type, and he’s your type! I think you guys will get along great!”

Yuuri stared resolutely at the ground. “Whatever you say.”

Phichit sighed and let them continue walking. He would get through to Yuuri eventually. When they got back to their room, he flopped back into bed. He had another few hours until his next class, but Yuuri only had an hour. 

Phichit played with his phone while Yuuri printed a few papers. When Yuuri finally left for his next class, a text came through.

 **Christophe Giacometti:** _Hello there partner ;) Are you free sometime this week to go over our plans for the paper?_

 **Phichit Chulanont:** _Yes definitely! Are you free tomorrow night around 8?_

 **Christophe Giacometti:** _Works for me! Second floor of the library?_

 **Phichit Chulanont:** _Sure I’ll see you then!_

Phichit grinned and put his phone down. Having Chris’s help with his English project didn’t concern him, but he could certainly use help on his side project: getting Yuuri and Victor together.

* * *

Phichit waved down Chris, who waved back and took a seat next to him at the small table in the library. “Glad you could come,” he said as the other man settled down.

Chris raised an eyebrow at him. “I wish I could say that was the first time I’ve heard that today.”

“Congrats, I guess,” Phichit said. “But, um, shouldn’t we talk about our project?”

Chris waved his hand. “I think there are far more interesting topics we could discuss, no?”

Phichit bit his lip. How do you tell your class partner that you really would rather talk about your project than their sex life?

Chris seemed to sense his hesitation and laughed. “Sorry! What I meant was, we could talk about Yuuri and Victor instead.”

“Oh,” Phichit said, sighing with relief. “Yes, yes, we can talk about that instead.”

“Victor often has no idea what to do in situations like these,” Chris said, rolling his eyes.

“Neither does Yuuri,” Phichit agreed. “But, I do know how to loosen him up a bit.”

Chris gave him a curious look. “Is getting him trashed really the way to make him charming to Victor?”

Phichit almost burst out laughing. “Believe me,” he said, “it’ll work. I have a weird feeling that Victor is going to be completely enchanted by drunk Yuuri.”

Chris shrugged. “Okay, then. If you say so. This weekend, maybe? My friend is throwing a big party on Saturday, and Victor will be there.”

“Perfect,” Phichit said with a grin. “Just give me the address, and I’ll take care of the rest.”

* * *

“Phichit, you’re impossible,” Yuuri said, looking at himself in the mirror. “There’s no way I’m wearing this in public.”

“Yuuri, _you’re_ impossible,” Phichit countered. “Why won’t you wear this? It’s just an outfit.”

“These jeans are so tight that they leave nothing to the imagination,” Yuuri complained, turning to look at his ass in the mirror. 

“That’s the point,” Phichit said with a sigh. “You look great in them!” 

“And this shirt,” Yuuri said, nervously tugging up the collar. “It dips down so low!”

“That’s also the point,” Phichit said. Realistically, he knew that Yuuri could show up to the party in a paper bag and practically charm the pants off Victor, but he also knew that dressing him up certainly wouldn’t hurt his chances. “Don’t you want to look nice?”

Yuuri frowned. “I feel very self-conscious like this.”

“I think you look great, and I bet _Victor_ will think you look great, too.”

Yuuri froze. “Why do you mention Victor?”

“No reason,” Phichit said quickly. “Come on, do a few shots with me to pregame!” He knew Yuuri would feel better after a little bit to start off the night, and he was right. 

“I’m ready,” Yuuri said, hands on his hips after he slammed down his shot glass for the third time. “Let’s go.”

“Let me get my shoes on,” Phichit said, rushing to make sure Yuuri didn’t leave without him. 

They took a bus to the house Chris had told him about, and the booming music could be heard a few blocks away. Yuuri wasn’t kidding about being ready, as he practically dragged Phichit through the front door. They had a good time drinking and dancing, and Phichit almost forgot why they were there until he got a text from Chris. 

**Christophe Giacometti:** _We’ll be there in 10 minutes_

Phichit smiled down at his phone and pulled Yuuri into a slightly quieter corner. “How are you feeling?” he asked his best friend. 

Yuuri put most of his bodyweight on Phichit and gave him a lopsided smile. “Great, I feel great,” he almost slurred. 

“Great, because,” Phichit began, but Yuuri wasn’t listening. 

“Can I tell you a secret?” Yuuri asked. 

“Uh, sure.”

Yuuri leaned in to Phichit’s ear. “I have a crush on Victor,” he said, not bothering to whisper.

“No way,” Phichit deadpanned.

“Yeah, I know, right?” Yuuri said with a giggle. “He’s so hot, Phichit. Like, so hot.”

“I know,” Phichit. “Which is why it’s great that…”

“I need something,” Yuuri said with sudden seriousness.

“Oh, okay. What is it?” Phichit asked, ready to get water or move them to the bathroom.

“I need an orgasm,” Yuuri said. 

Phichit just stared at him. “Excuse me?” he asked. 

“I need an orgasm!” Yuuri repeated, louder. “Like, I need a dick in me. Now.” 

“Okay,” Phichit said slowly. “That’s, um, good to hear. I guess.” _I’m not nearly drunk enough for this._

Yuuri sighed and leaned against the wall, his eyes fluttering shut. “I bet Victor has a really nice dick. Like, he’s so hot? He must have a hot dick, too?”

Phichit rubbed his temples. “Okay, we could _not_ have this conversation right now. That would be okay.” His phone buzzed, and he looked at the front door where Victor and Chris were entering. “Oh, look! There he is! Why don’t you go talk to him?” He moved to shove Yuuri in their direction, before he thought about it again and pulled Yuuri’s chin towards him to make eye contact. “Just, like, maybe don’t mention the whole ‘dick in me’ thing right away?”

Yuuri nodded and then made a beeline for the front door. Phichit took a deep breath and followed a few steps behind him. 

“Hey,” Yuuri drawled, leaning up against Victor. Victor was very slowly looking at Yuuri from head to toe, and Phichit took a second to congratulate himself on picking out such a great outfit for his best friend. Chris was attempting to stifle a laugh as he took in the sight of Yuuri drunkenly hitting on Victor. “Your eyes are like the sky,” Yuuri said. 

Victor visibly gulped. “How?” he said, his voice cracking.Then he cleared his throat and his voice returned to a normal octave. “I mean, how are they like the sky?”

Yuuri smiled at him. “They’re blue.”

Victor looked at him expectantly, but Phichit figured that was all Yuuri was thinking. He was too drunk to be creative. 

“Wanna dance?” Yuuri asked, trailing a hand down Victor’s chest. 

Victor’s eyes widened, both in surprise and what Phichit would bet was lust. “Um, yeah. I mean, yes! Definitely!” Victor let himself be led to the impromptu dance floor in the living room, and Yuuri immediately spun him around in a twirl. Apparently, this Yuuri still had some graceful moves, and they easily danced around the space, both smiling and laughing. 

Chris sidled up next to him, also watching them. “I guess you were right about Victor being charmed by a very drunk Yuuri,” he said with a laugh. 

“Yeah, I guess I was,” Phichit said, watching them happily. Eventually they slowed down, arms wrapped around each other even though the music was still fast. They were both just staring at each other, and Victor reached up to trail his hand down Yuuri’s face. Yuuri nuzzled into the touch, and Phichit felt a stab of happiness in his stomach. He was glad to see his best friend happy, even if it was really an alternate universe. 

As he continued watching, he felt another stab in his stomach, but this time it felt more like nausea. His stomach lurched as he grabbed at it. _This makes no sense,_ he thought. _I haven’t had much to drink at all!_

He couldn’t think much else before everything went black.

* * *

Phichit hesitantly opened a single eye, expecting to see the ceiling of his dorm room, or he even dared to hope that he would be back in his own universe. Instead, he was standing on a busy street in the middle of the day. It had been late in the night at the party, so this already didn’t make sense. With a sinking feeling, he looked down at his hands where he held an apron with a cup of coffee and a logo on the front. He cursed and looked up at the coffee shop in front of him. _Out of the frying pan and into the fire,_ he thought grimly.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Shamarmon- Thank you so much for reading! Most of the stuff that happened in this chapter is based on our own college years (yikes) so writing about it was fun! I think if Phichit wasn't training he'd have been a lot like us haha. And while we have a lot of ideas already, if there’s a specific genre of fic you’d like to see in the future, please let us know! 
> 
> **This will update every Thursday! And every Monday either Ray or I will post a preview of the upcoming chapter on tumblr!**
> 
> Thank you to Nicole and [NonDairyRay](http://archiveofourown.org/users/NonDairyRay/pseuds/NonDairyRay) for beta-ing and all of the ideas!
> 
> Finally, you can find all of us on tumblr  
> [Shamarmon](http://captainjazzband.tumblr.com/)  
> [NonDairyRay](http://victorniqueeforov.tumblr.com/)  
> [Nicole](http://zebralightning.tumblr.com/)


	2. Wake up and smell the coffee

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Making a latte is much easier than trying to figure out what in the world is happening to Phichit right now.

The bell on the door jingled as Phichit opened the door to his new part time job. He inhaled deeply, the smell of slightly stale coffee and warm bread washing over him. He wasn't sure how he knew he was supposed to be here, or how he had gotten there for that matter, but he had a feeling he had just started working here. Assuming this was another weird alternate universe and not just a dream, of course. 

“Hey, you’re the new guy, right? Phichit?” A man - Yuuri! - had popped up from behind the counter, shaking him from his thoughts. “You can come in our back door next time, it's easier to -” he cut off his sentence abruptly as a giggle emanated from further back behind the bar. He rolled his eyes. “Sorry about that, Victor is a bit immature sometimes.”

Phichit stood stock still, mouth slightly open. This was way too detailed to be a dream, and what were the chances the first people he'd see in a dream would be Yuuri and Victor? This had to be another one of those… situations. Or whatever they were. 

“...Phichit?” He realized he hadn’t moved since first walking in, and as his mother had always told him, you only get one chance at a first impression.

“Sorry!” Phichit chirped, hoping Yuuri hadn’t already written him off as just another dumb retail drone. “Just thinking about how excited I am to be working here!” _That should do it._

Yuuri tilted his head a little and smiled. “Sure, we’re glad to have you. You already seem like you have a much better attitude than the last guy, you wouldn’t believe the drama.” _Drama?_ Phichit perked up. Yuuri motioned for him to come over towards the counter, and leaned in conspiratorially. “He was Victor’s friend, I think they used to do ice skating lessons together or something, but they had a huge falling out and don’t speak anymore--”

The kitchen door slammed open hard enough to knock a coffee pot from its precarious perch on the microwave. Phichit could only stare as it wobbled and tipped over. The effect was almost comical; he watched Yuuri turn in slow motion, lunging at the coffee pot, as Victor simultaneously walked through the doorway, directly into Yuuri. Somehow, although Yuuri looked a little worse for the wear, the pot was unharmed. 

_“Bozhe moy,_ Yuuri, good catch!” Victor exclaimed delightedly. “Are you alright? It would be quite a shame if my favorite employee were to hurt himself!” He offered a hand to Yuuri, who seemed determined to look anywhere other than at the other man as he struggled to his feet. Victor deflated a little, at which point he finally noticed Phichit standing in front of the counter. 

“Oh! You must be Phichit!” Victor reached his other hand over the counter for a handshake. “Please, come around back, I’ll go get you a hat and an apron.” He spun around, leaving Yuuri and Phichit gawking after him.

Phichit could hear Victor rattling around in what he assumed was the office. Yuuri stood behind the counter, shifting awkwardly, until he seemed to pluck up the nerve to say something. 

“Anyway, hi, I’m Yuuri Katsuki. I work here. Well, obviously. That was Victor, he owns the place. Sorry everything is a little disorganized right now; like I said, Georgi quit to go move across the state for his girlfriend or something, so we’re a little short staffed.”

Phichit smiled. “I’m Phichit Chulanont. Nice to officially meet you.”

Yuuri gestured behind the bar. “Come on back here, I’ll show you how to clock in so Victor doesn’t forget to pay you.” The tone of his voice told Phichit there was a story behind that statement, but he decided not to press it.

As Yuuri explained the basics of the system, Phichit couldn’t help but notice that his friend was much more social and friendly than he had expected. Not to mention knowledgeable - it sounded like Yuuri had memorized an encyclopedia of different coffee drinks. Phichit chuckled to himself as he realized the coffee knowledge was probably just like Yuuri’s obsessive skating knowledge - he knew things about the sport that Phichit had never even thought of. 

Victor clattered back out of the office, holding a plastic package and a baseball cap. “Here you go, go ahead and put these on! I don’t really care what you wear underneath them, as long as you’re not naked.” Phichit could only stare. “Goodness, could you imagine coming to work in only an apron and nothing else?” 

A spluttering noise let them know that Yuuri had apparently choked on the coffee he was drinking. Victor spun on the spot and clapped him in the back. “Keep that throat functioning, Yuuri, we need that!”

* * *

A few hours into the shift, Phichit was feeling much more comfortable. Both Yuuri and Victor were acting like their normal selves, and he found that he quite liked the mindless hustle and bustle of the shop on a quiet afternoon. It gave him more time to think about what was happening, too. Clearly something was going on, and Phichit, being a person who needed to know all the details of everything, did not like it. _Alright, let’s review the facts,_ he thought. _It’s always better to have a solid foundation before jumping to conclusions_. 

He had been at dinner with his friends, congratulating Victor and Yuuri on their engagement, when he had apparently blacked out. But why? He definitely hadn’t been drunk, and he had no medical conditions that could cause such an episode. _Best come back to that._ He’d woken up, completely fine, but in the old dorm in Detroit that he used to share with Yuuri. He hadn’t been kidnapped, because Yuuri was there too, as well as several of the other competitors who should have been in Barcelona with him. The strangest part, he thought, was that he blacked out several more times and restarted the day. 

He gasped out loud, making Yuuri jump and spill half a latte down his apron. “It’s like  
Groundhog Day!” he exclaimed.

“What the hell? What’s wrong?” Yuuri asked, gingerly putting the cup down.

Phichit stood there, trying to quickly come up with a way to explain why he had just shouted a movie title out of nowhere. “Umm… a trivia question! From last night. I couldn’t think of the name of that movie and I just remembered it.” Reading Yuuri’s face, he could see that his friend wasn’t entirely convinced. “Silly old me, how could I forget? Hah. Well, never mind, sorry I scared you.” 

Yuuri nodded suspiciously and went back to his mess. Phichit sighed and, with a start, realized his hands were tingling very slightly again. That was another strange part of this whole thing. It seemed like the tingling sensation he’d felt in his dorm signaled an impending loss of consciousness, but now, it was fading. He’d had a friend in college who had some kind of condition with similar symptoms, and now he was cursing himself for not paying more attention to her seemingly unending health struggles. He was fairly certain she’d never mentioned anything about time travel or alternate universes like he was experiencing, though. 

The bell on the door jingled again, and Phichit looked up just in time to watch Yuuri’s face go from bored to cheerful to irritated in a matter of milliseconds. He didn’t know what that was about, but he plastered his Customer Service Smile onto his face and called out a greeting to the young redheaded woman who had just walked in. She smiled at him and called out something in Russian that Phichit vaguely recognized as a greeting, but continued straight to the other end of the bar where Victor was restocking a pastry case. 

“I can’t believe she’s back here again!” Yuuri hissed quietly from the cabinet he was reorganizing. 

“Sorry?”

“That woman. She’s been in here every day this week, flirting shamelessly with Victor!” 

“What??”

“It’s ridiculous. You’d think she’d have a little class and quit hitting on a man who’s clearly not interested!” Yuuri was starting to get agitated. 

“Yuuri, slow down. Do you even know her?” Phichit asked.

“Well, no, but I can tell. I just can. She’s bad news.”

Now that Phichit looked a little closer, the woman that was now conversing animatedly with Victor reminded him a lot of one of the women’s singles skaters from the real universe. It sounded like they were talking in Russian, and lucky enough for him, he had a very basic grasp on the language from how much time he’d spent among the multitude of Russians in the sport. 

“Yuuri, it kind of sounds like they’re not flirting.”

Yuuri gave him a look. “What? How do you know? Do you speak Russian?”

Phichit nodded. “A little,” he clarified. “Not enough to translate, obviously, but I really think they’re talking about… hmm… a beautiful man that Victor knows? I think, at least. The woman looks way too interested in this man to be hitting on Victor, I promise.”

Looking over at his friend again, his heart dropped when he saw the stricken look on Yuuri’s face. “Wait, do you mean Victor has a boyfriend?” 

Phichit’s hands started tingling again. _Shit._ “No, no, he’s definitely saying that he doesn’t have a chance with him and he’s single.”

Yuuri looked over at the two with watery eyes. “Really?” he warbled.

 _No._ “Yeah, definitely! I don’t know a lot of Russian, but I do understand the gossip.” _I have zero idea what they just said._

The door jingled again, breaking Yuuri from his fixation. A dark-haired woman stepped inside, clearly looking around for someone. Before Phichit could greet her, she seemed to find who she was looking for. 

_“Cara mia!_ Sorry I’m late!” she called as she walked to the end of the bar, directly into the arms of the redheaded woman with supposedly shady morals. The other woman nuzzled her face into her neck, said something that made the brunette giggle, and pecked her on the mouth. 

Phichit turned to look at Yuuri. His mouth was hanging wide open, clearly not expecting to be proven wrong this absolutely so soon. 

“Dude… Like I said… I really don’t think she was flirting with Victor,” he said. 

“...Oh,” was all Yuuri managed, still staring at the two women, who were now holding hands. 

Phichit sighed. It was time for him to step up and be the amazing friend he knew he was. “Hey, Yuuri, I’m sorry if this is overstepping, but like… you are clearly into him. And I think he’s pretty into you too, from what I’ve seen. I’ve literally been here for five hours and I can tell already.”

Yuuri sighed dejectedly. “Yeah, but a man that looks like him should date beautiful people like her. He’s way too out of my league.” Phichit opened his mouth to interject, but Yuuri quickly added, “Plus, I don’t even think he’s gay.”

That was quite enough for Phichit. “Oh, honey, he is absolutely gay. One hundred percent.” On second thought, maybe not one hundred percent, but if this Victor was anything like the original Victor, there was no question.

“You think so?”

“You said he figure skated, right? There’s no such thing as a 100% straight male figure skater, I can tell you that. Plus, he’s setting off a four-alarm gaydar fire.”

Yuuri looked up. “You’re gay?” 

_Shit._ “Well, not like, _gay_ gay, but enough that the Lord gave me a perfectly functional gaydar. Trust me, Yuuri, he likes men.”

* * *

The steady stream of customers slowed down to a trickle until the only people left in the store were Yuuri, Victor, Phichit, and a tall man in the corner focused on his laptop.

Victor was the first to break the silence, sighing heavily as he looked between the clock and the other two. “Yuuri, you can probably go as soon as you’re done your sidework.”

Yuuri stiffened and jumped down from the counter he had been sitting on. “No, I mean - it’s okay! I can stay!”

“I’d love for you to stay too, but I don’t think the next two hours will be busy enough to justify keeping you. I’d let Phichit go, but I need to show him how to close tonight.” 

Phichit almost couldn’t stand the looks on their faces - affection oozed out of Victor’s every pore, and Yuuri just looked distraught at having to be separated. _If only the original Yuuri had been this open about his feelings, he’d have been a lot easier to wingman for…_

Yuuri slumped a little, and Victor stiffened. “I, uh, if you _really_ want to come entertain me, you can pick up Georgi’s shift tomorrow - it’ll be slow, but I could use the help, I think,” he said quickly. Yuuri’s eyes lit up just as quickly, and Phichit groaned internally. Could they be any more obvious?

He decided to give them a little space just in case they were as PDA-inclined as the original Victor and Yuuri - as much as he loved them both and expected to be best man at their wedding, they could be a lot.

* * *

Before the gust of wind from the back door even settled down, Victor rounded on Phichit. The look in his eyes was almost maniacal. 

“Alright, Phichit, how hot is Yuuri? It’s ridiculous, right?” 

Phichit liked where this was going.

“He’s so beautiful and I know he likes men, so does he just not like me? I don’t know why he doesn’t like me!” Victor seemed to be talking to himself more than Phichit, so he let the other man finish his rant. “Is it because I’m his boss? Does he not like men with large foreheads? Is he asexual? I really hope not.” He began pacing.

Phichit took the pause as a sign to offer his input. “No! He clearly likes you, Victor, you should have heard him when that redheaded woman came in.”

Victor paused. “You mean Mila? Why, what happened?”

“He thought she was flirting with you and got, like, really jealous.”

A beat of silence passed before Victor cackled. “Mila? Flirting with me? I certainly hope not, she’s only eighteen! Does he think I’m some kind of predator? Oh no, maybe that’s why he doesn’t like me.” Victor gave Phichit the saddest look he’d ever seen on anyone over the age of five. “Did he tell you that?”

Phichit sighed. It looked like he was about to experience the Runaway Victor Train firsthand. Yuuri had told him about it, and from that information alone, it sounded just as hard to stop as one of Yuuri’s anxiety attacks.

“No, of course not! Plus, we kind of assumed she was with that other girl that came in.”

“Sara? I love her, she’s so good for Mila. She’s Italian, did you know that? I told Mila she needs to be careful or else they’ll drown each other in love, since Italians are almost as affectionate as Russians, I’ve heard!”

Phichit didn’t have much experience with dating anyone of either nationality, but if Victor was anything to go off of, he believed it. 

“Anyway, Victor,” Phichit interrupted, “I really think you need to tell Yuuri you’re interested. He isn’t picking up on whatever signals you’re giving him, so you need to be direct.” He begged whatever deity was listening that this Yuuri had the same personality as the original.

Victor scratched the back of his head. “You think so? I don’t know, I think I’m being obvious already. I don’t want to make him uncomfortable if he doesn’t reciprocate.”

Phichit sighed again. “Victor, how much do you know about Japanese culture?”

“Hmm, well, I googled a few things that Yuuri mentioned in passing, but other than that, not much. Why?” 

“He’s probably waiting for you to confess, Victor. That’s like, a thing in Japan. You have to actually tell him you’re interested.” Phichit explained.

Victor’s eyes widened. “Really? So you think he’d like a singing telegram? I have a friend who works at one, I’ve been dying for an excuse -”

“No!” Phichit blurted, a little too quickly. Victor looked confused. “What I mean is, tell him. Face to face. He’s not the most confident, if you hadn’t noticed -”

“And I don’t know why, he’s the most beautiful man I’ve ever seen,” Victor interrupted.

Phichit sighed yet again. “I know, _we_ both know that, but Yuuri needs a little help sometimes. You have to meet him where he is, you know?” 

“I see,” Victor mused. He stood still for a few moments, not moving, deep in thought. “So you’re saying I shouldn’t go all out, right?”

“Definitely not,” Phichit said. “Keep it low-key for a while; you can start spoiling him once he’s more comfortable with you.”

Victor brightened. “Got it! I’ll ask him to get dinner with me tomorrow after I get off.” He pulled out his phone, tapping in a search for local restaurants.

“Great idea, I’m sure he’ll love it,” Phichit said.

“Well, I couldn’t have done it without you! It’s almost like you know him or something, you’re really good at this.” Phichit froze, and before he could respond, he felt a sharp stab in his stomach and the coffee shop melted away.

* * *

Phichit snapped awake, not nearly as gently as last time. His first thought was to worry that he’d have to start the coffee shop day over again, but as he took in his surroundings, it was obvious that that was not the case. Humid air floated past on a warm breeze, and he could feel the sun beating down on him as he looked around. Wherever he was, he was in a beautiful, ornate open pavilion, with a river on the other side of the structure and… _wait_. He knew this place. The more he looked at the architecture, the more familiar it became. He could feel the tension leave his body as he realized he was in his home country, at the Grand Palace in Bangkok. 

Unfortunately, this universe did not seem to be on Phichit’s side. No sooner did he feel the familiar warmth of recognition, then he heard his name from across the courtyard. He spun to see who was calling him, and his heart almost stopped when he saw none other than his friend Yuuri Katsuki, wearing the traditional garb of a king.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> NonDairyRay: Thanks for reading! This is really the first actual thing I’ve published since like, 2011, so hopefully I’m not too rusty! I worked in a coffee shop for a while, and there was absolutely shit like this happening between employees, including two assistant managers who dated and had a falling out and refused to even look at each other… but luckily, Victor and Yuuri love each other too much to make me write anything like that. We’ve got a LOT planned out (like… at least 15 chapters already) but if you have anything you’d like to see please let us know! 
> 
> Also, _bozhe moy_ (Боже мой) means “oh my God” in Russian. If you’ve read Shamarmon’s other fic Love So Life, you’ll know that I really controlled myself with the translations this time around lmao
> 
> Shoutout to Nicole and [Shamarmon](http://archiveofourown.org/users/Shamarmon/pseuds/Shamarmon) for beta-ing and making sure I actually finished this on time lol.
> 
> Come shout at us on tumblr!  
> [NonDairyRay](http://victorniqueeforov.tumblr.com/)  
> [Shamarmon](http://captainjazzband.tumblr.com/)  
> [Nicole](http://zebralightning.tumblr.com/)


	3. The King and the Skater and Phichit

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Phichit, as advisor to King Yuuri, has to help his best friend navigate political treachery while also setting him up with the handsome new English tutor Victor. On the bright side, he’s finally comfortable in an alternate universe, because who doesn’t want to live their favorite movie?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> shamarmon- I had to flesh it out, but there is actually a canon plot to the movie _The King and the Skater!_ Other than obviously being inspired by _The King and I,_ it also seems to be based off of the Front Palace Crisis that took place in the Kingdom of Siam (now Thailand) in 1874, with some, um, creative liberties haha. I would definitely watch it if it was a real movie! And please forgive any historical inaccuracies, as while I did a lot of research for this chapter, it was all Wikipedia research.

Phichit continued staring at Yuuri for much longer than necessary. All hope that things were back to normal quickly drained out of his body. Because while Phichit might not have noticed before, he noticed it now. The room he was in looked almost exactly like the Grand Palace of Bangkok, but the details were slightly wrong. He hadn’t paid any attention at first because the actual place he was in was even more familiar: the Great Palace of Longka, the basically Thailand but technically fictional country from his favorite movie, _The King and the Skater._ This knowledge was cemented by Yuuri’s outfit, a cream-colored dress shirt adorned with various medals and sashes and cinched with a handsome belt. Phichit could never forget a single outfit that the King wore in this movie, as one never truly forgets their first sexual awakening. 

Yuuri cleared his throat, and Phichit jumped in place. His fingers were tingling, so he immediately pressed his hands together and bowed in a _wai,_ smiling and making sure to raise his hands high to show respect to the king, even though his Yuuri was his best friend. 

Yuuri smiled and returned the gesture, then waved him over. “Come on, Phichit, you know I’m hopeless in meetings without you, my trusted advisor.” 

“Ah, totally, I mean, yeah,” Phichit mumbled, walking towards him. It only took him the few steps across the room for him to straighten up and regain his confidence. He hadn’t known what was going on in any of the other alternate universes, but _The King and the Skater_ was his favorite movie, his element, and his home. He knew every line, every song, and he was sure that he could do whatever he needed to in this universe quite easily. A smile spread across his face as he gave Yuuri a pat on the shoulder. “What’s on the agenda today?” he asked, even though he could already guess it was yet _another_ meeting with the Vice King. 

“It’s the Vice King,” Yuuri said with a sigh, confirming Phichit’s thoughts as they walked across the hall towards the meeting room. “He’s still not happy about the new Auditing Office.” 

Phichit nodded sagely. If he couldn’t be the King, he was fine with being an advisor, and he would do his job damn well. “If he was happy with it, he wouldn’t be a very good Vice King. The Auditing Office is taking away all of the nobles’ tax collecting powers, and as he is one of those nobles, he’s bleeding money.”

Yuuri frowned. “I know they’re not happy about it, but the old way of collecting taxes was so corrupt…”

Phichit smiled. “Your Majesty, it’s a good thing, regardless of their feelings.”

Yuuri waved his hand. “Remember, it’s Yuuri when we’re alone, please.”

“Okay, Yuuri. Still, you’re the most powerful man in Thai… Longka! This will work out, trust me,” Phichit said. 

They reached the door, and Yuuri didn’t move to go in. “I’m not so sure about that,” he muttered, looking down at the floor. 

Phichit almost sighed. This was closer to the incredibly anxious Yuuri he knew. “Yuuri, look at me,” he demanded, waiting for his best friend to finally make eye contact. “The Vice King is still second in command to you! Having more troops than you doesn’t mean anything when you have way more brains. You also have me,” he added with a wink. “I’m sure we can both agree he’s a bit of a doofus.”

“Phichit!” Yuuri hissed, looking around to make sure they were alone. “He’s still a prince!”

“You’re right,” Phichit said. “His Royal Highness the doofus.”

Yuuri barked out a laugh before he could stop himself, and Phichit squeezed his arm. “See? Everything will be fine. Even if gets a little rough,” _which I know it will,_ “I’ll be here with you, so it’ll be okay!”

Yuuri smiled at him. “I guess you’re right.”

“I know I’m right,” Phichit said, straightening up. “And I’m your advisor, so you have to listen to what I say. Now, let’s go in there and show him who’s boss!”

“Fine,” Yuuri said, rolling his eyes, but he was still smiling, so Phichit counted it as a win. They entered the meeting room, and Phichit immediately recognized JJ sitting at the table looking annoyed, dressed similarly to Yuuri. He assumed that the rest of the people in this universe would then continue to be skaters like the previous universes, and with a start he realized a handsome Russian man would probably be crashing into their world tonight. Or at least, that’s how _he_ would have cast this alternate universe. 

JJ, the Vice King, didn’t bow to Yuuri until Phichit cleared his throat, and even then he could see the reluctance in the action by how shallow the bow was. Yuuri still returned it and Phichit followed suit. “Let’s get right into it,” the _(Canadian? Thai? Longka-ese?)_ man said. “This ridiculous Auditing Office is bringing in less money than when we handled collecting taxes ourselves.”

Phichit could feel Yuuri stiffen next to him. “If the previous money was coming from those who had no more money to give, don’t you feel this is more appropriate?”

JJ’s eyes narrowed. “Are you accusing me of corruption?”

“I’m not accusing you of anything,” Yuuri said easily. “Why, were you being corrupt?”

JJ stood up and slapped the table. “I wasn’t appointed to Vice King by His Majesty the Regent to be treated like this!”

Yuuri just regarded him coolly. “No, you were appointed to Vice King by His Majesty the _Ex-Regent._ You will notice I did not say that you were appointed by me, because you were not. And, if I may remind you, the position of Vice King is still below that of King. So I believe that I do not even have to treat you civilly, as I am now. I trust that you don’t wish this relationship to become… uncivil.”

Phichit tried to keep his jaw from dropping, but JJ had no such luck. “This isn’t over,” he said, instead, trying to gather his composure. “You don’t have as much support as you think, _Your Majesty,"_ JJ said, his voice dripping with sarcasm. “I have the nobles, the prestige of my father, and the British Consul-General. So enjoy your title, for it’s all you have, and even that may not be for long.” JJ huffed out of the room, and the minute the door closed, Yuuri fell forward onto the table. 

Phichit surged forward to check on him, but Yuuri was just breathing slowly. “I can’t believe I just said all of that to him,” he said. 

“I can’t either!” Phichit said. “Yuuri, that was awesome! You totally gave it to him! You laid down the law!” 

Yuuri groaned. “We already have a bad enough working relationship, and I just had to go and say stuff like that…”

Phichit patted his shoulder. “Trust me, as your advisor, it’s good to be firm with him.”

Yuuri propped his head up on his hands. “But he was right. He does have the support of the nobles, at least unofficially.”

“Well, we can probably do something about that, but not tonight,” Phichit said. “Besides, who knows when inspiration will just, you know, drop in?” Phichit knew exactly when inspiration would drop in, and it was later that night. “Say, why don’t we drop by the English tutor first thing tomorrow after breakfast?”

Yuuri narrowed his eyes at him. “Why would I need to visit the English tutor?”

“Maybe he’ll have an idea of how to help you,” Phichit said with a shrug. “I know you studied British politics and administration when you were abroad, and that’s an advantage you have over the Vice King. The English tutor surely knows even more, and you two can, um, collaborate. Swap information,” he said. Honestly, he deserved an award for not adding “and bodily fluids.”

“Sounds like a good idea,” Yuuri said. “Let’s get to bed for the night, then.”

Phichit easily made his way to his room and lay down in the bed, burying himself under the heavy comforter. The early December night was cold, but he was truly comfortable for the first time in a long time. The other alternate universes were unknown to him, but he managed. This was his element, and he had complete confidence that he could get through this even easier. Hell, he was even going to thoroughly enjoy it, because who didn’t want to live through their favorite movie? He fell asleep easily and quickly. 

The next morning he rummaged through his wardrobe for a cool new outfit, because honestly this was so exciting as a fan, and he met Yuuri at breakfast. They ate _chok,_ rice porridge just like his mom used to make. Phichit enjoyed the taste of home, but he was also excited to see if he was right about Victor, so he practically dragged Yuuri to the study as soon as they were done eating. 

Phichit burst in through the front door, and almost immediately he saw a head of silver hair bent over a desk. He steered Yuuri in that direction, then discreetly coughed to get Victor’s attention. The _(Russian? British?)_ man jumped up and looked at Yuuri with wide eyes. Phichit said, “May I introduce, His Majesty Yuuri Katsuki, King of Longka.” As soon as he said the words, he realized he didn’t know if Katsuki was actually his last name, but Yuuri didn’t correct him and his fingers didn’t tingle, so he figured he guessed correctly. 

When Victor didn’t respond other than staring at Yuuri, and Yuuri didn’t respond other than staring at Victor, Phichit bowed and the other two eventually caught on and bowed as well. 

“Um,” Yuuri said, coughing slightly, “You must be new, because I don’t remember seeing you before.”

“Ah, um, yes, you see, I came here very recently, just last night, actually,” Victor said sheepishly. “So I’m still new here. Oh! And my name is Victor Nikiforov.”

Yuuri thought for a second, then turned to Phichit. “How did you know he was the English tutor if he just came here last night?”

“I helped him settle in of course,” Phichit answered, giving Victor a discrete wink. Yuuri didn’t need to question Victor’s place here. “I was just telling His Majesty here that he should study up on British administration and government, and we figured the English tutor was the best place to start. Do you agree?”

“Yes!” Victor almost yelled, then he lowered his voice and swallowed. “I mean, yes, I can definitely be of help.”

“That’s good to hear,” Yuuri said with a smile. 

“Why don’t you two go sit down and talk? I’ll wait over there for you,” Phichit said, gesturing to the nearby table. The two of them settled in and Phichit could see their eyes sparkling as they started talking animatedly. While Phichit didn’t find the intricacies of their conversation interesting, he was glad that they were getting along well. The original movie didn’t end with the two of them together, but the original movie also didn’t have Phichit in it, so he figured anything was possible. 

He passed the time by reading random books around the study, but eventually he had to inform Yuuri that it was time for lunch. He didn’t miss the sad looks on either of their faces, so he went ahead and invited Victor to eat with them. Yuuri tried glaring at him, but his happiness drowned the look out. 

Phichit wolfed down the food, loving every second he could get of having royal chefs. Today they had prepared _khao yam,_ rice salad. Victor and Yuuri didn’t stop talking unless they were physically chewing. Otherwise, they were still talking about British politics, with an emphasis on their time spent in Britain. Phichit didn’t really mind being ignored, so he just ate as much food as he could while they bonded. 

After lunch, Phichit led them back to the study where they just continued their earlier conversation. Phichit didn’t need to listen in to get the gist of it: Yuuri wanted to change the way the monarchy operated to take power away from the nobles and be fairer to the people, and he thought that instituting modern British policies was a good way to do that. Although it was a simplification, Phichit happened to know this area of Thai history better than any other, since he studied it extensively to better understand the nuances of the plot that most people missed. Even now, he knew that Arthur, or rather Victor as Arthur, was suggesting to Yuuri the usage of a Privy Council to gain influence and cement his own legitimacy as King. Phichit even wrote a few papers on the actual events that inspired the movie, the Front Palace Crisis. 

Still, he couldn’t get ahead of himself. He had a feeling that he should let things happen as they really did, so he let Yuuri enjoy the moments of calm for now. 

Yuuri and Victor didn’t part until after dinner, and Phichit had to practically drag Yuuri away for their meeting with the rest of the Royal Family. As expected, one of the first things brought up was Victor. 

“I think we should be wary of him,” one of Yuuri’s brothers brought up. “He’s a foreigner here with no warning.”

Yuuri scoffed. “We welcome foreigners here, brother. And he’s just a tutor, he doesn’t need a warning.”

_Well, he’s not just a tutor, but I wouldn’t want to spoil it for you,_ Phichit thought with a small smile. 

Still, the brother didn’t verbally agree. Yuuri gently steered the conversation away from Victor to his (and Victor’s) idea about a Privy Council. The rest of the meeting was spent discussing how to implement one, and Phichit listened with interest. 

When they were done for the night, Phichit went back to his room and slept just as soundly as the night before. He was loving every minute of this new universe, and he was glad he had plenty left to do before he was presumably whisked to the next one, as he had pretty much given up hope of returning home.

* * *

The next few days seemed to pass in a blur, as Phichit mostly just babysat Yuuri and Victor talking for hours on end. He thoroughly enjoyed the day that he got to, along with the rest of the Royal Family, discover Victor playing DuelMon with the young children. Seeing the trading card game brought a huge feeling of nostalgia to him. While some called the movie’s tie-in to the card game heavy handed, Phichit never really minded. In fact, he had quite the collection of DuelMon cards back home, and he always enjoyed it more than Pokémon or Yu-Gi-Oh, even though it was literally just a ripoff. 

The Royal Family, Phichit, and Yuuri had finished their meeting, and everyone had followed the loud noises of people laughing and yelling all the way to the study, where they all found Victor surrounded by the Royal children, all clamoring over his collection of DuelMon cards. Victor was indulging them, helping them read the English descriptions to the cards and letting them pretend to battle each other. Even if Phichit didn’t know the plot of the movie, he would’ve known that this was the point where Victor was finally trusted by the Royal Family. He also laughed at that scene like he did every time he watched it, as the only thing he could think was, _That’s impossible! Only adults are allowed to play children’s card games!_

After a few more days, Phichit made sure that he and Yuuri were taking a walk of the grounds at the right time to stumble across Victor using his magical powers from the card game to freeze a pond. Phichit was satisfied hearing Yuuri’s gasp, but he was even more satisfied watching Yuuri’s smile as Victor led the Royal Family’s children in a skating lesson on the freshly frozen pond. The children slipped and fell a lot, but Victor was always there with a smile to pick them up. After a while the children got tired, so Victor put on a little show for them. His skating was just as impressive in this universe as the real universe, and Phichit wasn’t surprised to see that he was far better than the actual actor. 

Victor spun and jumped, even allowing his residual magic to trail snowflakes behind him. Phichit and Yuuri were enraptured the whole performance, and as soon as he was done, Yuuri rushed forward to talk to him about it. Victor was pleasantly surprised to see that Yuuri had been watching, and they gave each other an awkward embrace on the ice that Yuuri slipped on to get close to him. 

Once Yuuri realized that they weren’t alone, he jumped out of his arms, almost falling again, and Victor laughed and grabbed onto his arm to keep him upright. “Um,” Yuuri said, blushing, “Are you opposed to becoming not only our English tutor, but also our ice skating instructor?”

“I’d be honored to,” Victor said with a smile, bowing slightly. 

“Oh, and, when were you planning on mentioning that you also had magical powers?” Yuuri asked, cocking an eyebrow. 

“Ah,” Victor said, rubbing the back of his head. “Sorry about that, I didn’t quite realize it myself until very recently. All I know is that it's connected to my DuelMon cards.”

“It’s not a problem!” Yuuri said quickly. “I just was curious. About you. I mean, ugh…”

“It’s okay, I should have told you,” Victor said, the smile falling from his face. “I should tell you everything…”

“You don’t need to if you’re not ready,” Yuuri said, reaching a hand up as if to caress Victor’s face, then thinking twice about it and deciding to pat his shoulder again. 

Victor gave him a small smile. “Thank you.”

Phichit decided to remind them that they had quite the audience by clearing his throat. They both spun around to see the gaggle of children watching them with wide eyes. 

“Ah, I didn't realize, oh my,” Yuuri mumbled, blushing as he tried walking off the ice and almost fell again. Victor laughed and took his hand, skating them both to the edge. 

Phichit leaned over to whisper in Yuuri’s ear, “Remember how you have the first Privy Council of Longka coming up? Wouldn’t it be impressive to the councilors to see the children ice skate?” Yuuri perked up immediately. “I could take the children back to the hall if you wanted to, um, _discuss_ that with Victor. Privately.”

Yuuri groaned and lightly punched his shoulder, but he also nodded and motioned for Victor to follow him around the garden now that his ice skates were off. Victor’s eyes widened, but he followed without hesitation. 

“Alright, kiddies, nothing to see here, just adults talking, let’s move along,” Phichit said, herding the group of children back to the building. It was good to know that he was just as good a wingman as ever, no matter the universe. After he took the children to bed, he snuck out and grabbed a pair of skates. Seeing Victor skate had been incredibly inspiring, and he couldn’t help but practice himself. Once he was out on the ice, he felt even better than he did before. He hadn’t skated since this whole experience began, and he could feel all of the uncertainty from his situation drain out of his body and mind as he skated around the pond. Regardless of the craziness of everything, this wasn’t all bad. He was living his favorite movie, and he was still surrounded by friends. He could make the best of this, and maybe even come back a better skater. 

The brief break from the ice made him a little rusty, but his muscles were also refreshed, and he easily landed his jumps after a quick warmup. He ran through his short program, and a thrill ran through him when he realized that he would get to experience “Shall We Skate!” for real soon. He also chuckled with the knowledge that Victor was going to be soliloquizing later that night about wanting to tell Yuuri the truth about his circumstances. While Victor was certainly better at skating than the original actor, Phichit somehow doubted he would be better at singing. 

Phichit went to bed with his legs slightly sore, but he slept even better than before. 

The next few days were a flurry of activity around the Great Palace as everyone prepared for the first Privy Council of Longka. Yuuri was a nervous wreck when he was alone with Phichit, expressing how Vice King JJ would still have the upper hand in their struggles, and Phichit did his best to reassure him in his position. Victor was busy teaching the children a routine to skate to for the councilors, and eventually it was the big night. 

The 48 councilors had been arriving all day, and now that they had eaten dinner, it was time for the ice show. Phichit joined everyone else as they gathered around the pond-turned-rink to watch Victor and the children perform. This was also the first big musical number of the movie, and Phichit clapped along as Victor led the children through their routine. The choreography was an expert blend of the modern ballet that most ice skaters studied and traditional Thai dance, and Victor and the children sang about their cultures as they skated. The underlying story of the routine was based on _Uncle Tom’s Cabin,_ just like in the _The King and I,_ even though the anti-slavery message made a lot less sense in this movie. Phichit would still fight anyone who said this movie was bad, though.

Everyone gave them a huge round of applause when they finished the routine, and Yuuri proudly smiled at Victor as he posed with the children. Phichit then ushered Yuuri and the councilors back to the hall where they officially started the ceremony of the councilors pledging their allegiance to Yuuri. Phichit’s heart swelled with pride as he watched his best friend accept the pledges. Probably none of them were planning on coming and not pledging loyalty, but the ice skating certainly helped, and he knew that word of this change would gain respect for Longka from other countries. 

Once the ceremony was complete, Victor cautiously approached Yuuri and bowed. “Your Majesty, might I have a word?” he asked. 

Yuuri returned the bow, then glanced at Victor worriedly. “Is everything alright?”

“Yes,” Victor said, but he wasn’t smiling. 

Yuuri looked to Phichit for permission, and he waved the two lovebirds off, then immediately ran the other direction and hid in the bush he knew they would talk by. His movie knowledge was rewarded when Victor and Yuuri sat down on the nearest bench, their backs to the bush. 

“I have something that I need to tell you,” Victor said without any further preamble. 

Yuuri gulped nervously. “Well, what is it?”

Victor took a deep breath. “I’m actually from the future.”

Yuuri gasped, but Phichit had to stifle a giggle. There was no way Victor could surprise him in his own favorite movie. 

“It’s true. I’m still British,” he said, his Russian accent thick, “but I’m from the 21st century. 2016, to be precise.”

“I… I don’t know what to say,” Yuuri whispered. “The future? That's impossible.”

“I thought so, too,” Victor said. “But one minute I was in modern-day Manchester, and then I was here.”

“Modern-day Manchester,” Yuuri slowly repeated. “But this is modern! 2016? That's… That's crazy!”

“It is,” Victor agreed. “But it's true. I don't know why I was sent back, but here I am, born in the year 1988 and living in the year 1874.”

Yuuri just sat and stared across the garden to the frozen pond, his hands wringing together. 

“I know you can’t possibly believe me,” Victor said, turning his head away.

“No! I believe you!” Yuuri said, grabbing Victor’s hands. “It’s you, so I believe you. It’s just, a lot to take in, you know?”

“I’m glad,” Victor said with a sigh of relief. “I’m glad that you believe me, Yuuri. And I’m glad that I met you.”

Yuuri blushed, but he didn’t release Victor’s hands. “So, what’s the future like? How is the kingdom of Longka?”

“It’s great,” Victor replied with a smile. “It’s a well-respected, independent country with a rich history. I just wish I had studied it a bit more, so I would know what’s going on around us right now.”

“Well, luckily,” Yuuri said, “I happen to know a lot about Longka, so just stick with me and you’ll be good.”

“Definitely,” Victor affirmed, running his thumb over Yuuri’s knuckles. 

“I get the feeling that you’re not really an English tutor, though,” Yuuri said. 

“Ah, yeah, I’m not,” Victor said sheepishly. “I just kind of appeared here and snuck into the hall, then traded places with the old English tutor. I’m really a figure skater. Well, a retired figure skater.”

“What? Retired? Why did you stop?” Yuuri asked. 

Victor grimaced. “For a skater, inspiration is everything, and I lost mine. I had no more motivation to skate, so I retired. All I do now is work part time at a local ice skating rink and play DuelMon. Well, all I _did._ I guess now I’m a figure skating instructor in 19th century Longka,” he said with a small smile.

“Yeah,” Yuuri said, squeezing his hands. “Well, I hope you find your inspiration again. I think it would be wonderful to see you skate more.”

Victor stood up. “You know, I think I have an idea of where my inspiration could come from.”

“Me?” Yuuri asked after a few seconds of silence and a pointed look from Victor. “Oh, no, I couldn’t possibly…”

“You _have_ inspired me, Yuuri,” Victor said with a smile. “When I’m with you, all I want to do is skate and skate until I can’t anymore, because it feels like you’re filling me with new songs and emotions.” Phichit relished in the fact that their conversation was just as gay as the movie. 

Yuuri didn’t respond, he only blushed, but Victor pulled him up next to him by their still joined hands. “You know, Your Majesty, skating isn’t only a solo activity. Shall we skate?”

“I don’t think I’ll be any good,” Yuuri muttered, but he followed Victor to the frozen pond anyway.

Victor stepped out first, then dramatically turned to Yuuri and held out his hand. He [sang,](https://youtu.be/2PYwj2QGQqA) “What do you see from there? People sing royal anthem, Your Majesty,” and Phichit knew immediately he had not misjudged Victor’s singing ability, but he was too excited to care. Yuuri took his hand and Victor led them around the ice as the music picked up, the both of them staring into each other’s eyes. Phichit could clearly see their feelings for each other written on their faces. “Once you left your country and travel around the world,” Victor continued to sing to him. 

This was the part where it turned into an ensemble song, and a teenage girl popped her head out and sang, “You’ll find the new world in you.”

Phichit jumped up from behind the bush and joined the chorus in singing, “And come to love your homeland more. Shall we skate?” The children came back into the area, still wearing their costumes, and the other members of the palace joined them, carrying armfuls of flowers and forming a circle around the pond. 

Victor lifted Yuuri a few feet off the ice as he spun them around, singing, “You could step like a feather on the ice. Let yourself go with music spinning around like a dice.”

Phichit joined the circle of dancers, finding a space next to a tall, dark-haired man. Kicking his leg out, Phichit performed the moves better than any of the actual dancers could have hoped. He belted out with them, “Shall we skate?”

Victor sang to Yuuri, “Your dreams will come true if you believe in, like a magical trading card game. Shall we skate with me? Let’s step out with me!” 

Phichit dropped to his knees at the appropriate time and did jazz hands to the middle of the rink with everyone else as Victor spoke, “Now take my hands, come on!” They all shouted, “Your Majesty!” as Victor continued, “Right, left, right, slow down… Yes! Yes you did it! Just keep on believing our future must be freezing in the ice!”

Phichit happily sang along to the rest of the chorus as Victor and Yuuri kept going around the rink, and the song ended with Victor throwing Yuuri into a beautiful triple salchow. _Yes,_ he thought, _they are definitely better at ice skating than the actors. I wonder if they’ve been practicing pair skating..._

When the song ended, Victor and Yuuri were panting and holding each other close. Victor leaned in slightly, and Yuuri was meeting him the rest of the way…

They were interrupted by a scream, and everyone turned to a woman pointing to the nearest door. “Fire!” she yelled, and everyone around them started scrambling to get away. 

Yuuri immediately broke away from Victor and skated towards Phichit. “Find out what’s happening, and get the guards on putting it out,” he said, ripping his skates off. 

“I’m on it,” Phichit said with a quick bow before running to find the captain of the guard. He only paused for a second when he saw Chris running towards him, but the light armor he was wearing let Phichit assume he was exactly who he was looking for. 

“The fire’s spreading quickly,” Chris said without preamble. “We’re trying to put it out, but it’s already starting to spread to the city.”

“Still, keep trying,” Phichit urged him. 

“There’s one more thing,” Chris said after a moment’s hesitation. Phichit knew exactly what it was, but he nodded to encourage him, anyway. “The Vice King’s guards came to help immediately, but I turned them away. They were here only a minute after we learned about the fire, and the Front Palace is at least 5 minutes away.”

Phichit nodded grimly. “Good thinking, I agree that it’s suspicious. Keep them away, and focus on putting out the fire.” Chris bowed and ran away, and Phichit went back to Yuuri. “The fire is already spreading to the city, and we’re having a hard time putting it out,” he said loudly, hoping that Victor would overhear. 

Yuuri groaned. “Not the city! What can we do?”

Victor approached them. “Not to overhear, but maybe I could be of help? I’m still not quite sure how my magic works, but I could try to help.”

Yuuri shook his head and grabbed his hand. “Victor, it’s too dangerous. You could get hurt.”

Victor gripped his hand. “And so could you, and a lot more people, if we don’t put it out quickly. We _must_ protect the city.”

Yuuri looked to Phichit, and he nodded in approval. “I’ll take us to the city, and we’ll work on putting the fire out.” The three of them ran to the outskirts of the city, and they saw a few buildings starting to catch on fire. People were running through the streets, herding children and animals out of danger. 

Yuuri took a deep breath and nodded to Victor. “Just be careful,” he said. 

Victor gave him a quick kiss on the cheek, before saying, “I always am.” He pulled out a card, took a deep breath, then brandished it towards the empty street and muttered a few words. Water started to trickle out of the card, then it started flowing more steadily until a snout poked out of the card. It was followed by a head, then a long dragon’s body made of water followed. The dragon coiled around Victor, its blue eyes glowing in the night sky against its white body. Victor whispered a few words and pointed to the spreading fire, and the dragon silently dove over, snaking through the buildings. Everywhere the dragon went, the flames slowly lowered until the fire was put out. 

Phichit was breathless watching the scene actually unfold in front of him, as there was no CGI and it really looked like a water dragon was putting out the fires. However, the moment was ruined for him as soon as he breathed deep and didn’t smell fire anymore and the only thing he could think was, _Ah, fresh air. I love the smell of card games in the morning._

The dragon zoomed back into the card, and Victor’s shoulders sagged. He started to tilt to one side, and Yuuri rushed to catch him before he could collapse. Yuuri ran his fingers through his hair and whispered into his ear as Victor looked around him in confusion. Chris came running back to them, stopping and putting his hands on his knees to pant. “We managed to stop the fire inside the Great Palace,” he said between heavy breaths. “I came to help put out the fire in the city, but it looks like you have that under control.”

“We do,” Phichit agreed. “Any word from Vice King JJ?”

Chris snorted. “No, his guards tried to invade the Great Palace, but otherwise he stayed put in the Front Palace.”

“Noted,” Phichit said, “as it is his job to help protect the King.” He and Chris helped Yuuri carry Victor back. As they approached, they murmured at seeing the Vice King’s troops surrounding the Great Palace. 

“What is the meaning of this?” Yuuri asked, still supporting Victor’s weight. 

“We were ordered by the Vice King to help contain the spread of the fire,” the lead guard, Otabek, said, stepping forward. “But it looks to be contained already.”

Chris frowned at him. “Oh, so you come before I even know about the fire, and then surround the palace once it’s out? Suspicious, no?”

Otabek frowned right back. “What are you accusing me of?”

Phichit was quick to step in. “Nobody’s accusing anyone of anything.” _Not yet._ “Thank you for your help, but as you can see, it’s no longer necessary,” he told Otabek. “Please let us in.”

“Of course,” Otabek, said, stepping aside. 

“You can also leave,” Chris added.

Otabek hesitated, but called his troops away. Phichit felt bad for him, as Otabek was only following orders, and only the Vice King had actually done any damage. 

They hurried inside and laid Victor down on a bed to rest. As soon as he was settled, Yuuri turned to Phichit with fire in his eyes. “That was about the most suspicious situation I’ve ever encountered, and I just know that Vice King JJ has to have played a part in it.”

“I agree,” Phichit said, knowing for a fact that he did, at least in the movie. History was more gray. “Let’s not waste time in retaliating, but in a smarter way than a fire.”

“But what can we do?” Yuuri asked, holding his head in his hands. “I have the councilors, but JJ has the nobles and the British.”

“Let’s call the ex-regent,” Phichit offered when Yuuri said nothing else. “He held the throne for many years when you were too young to, and he has the wisdom, experience, and support that we need right now.”

“That’s a great idea,” Yuuri said with a smile. “I don’t know what I’d do without you, Phichit.”

“I don’t either,” Phichit joked with a grin. “I’ll get the ex-regent here as soon as possible.”

The next morning, the ex-regent was on his way and the Vice King had fled the palace. While the conflict wasn’t over, the worst of it was, and Phichit was glad for that. Victor was still very weak from his use of magic, and he could barely speak. Phichit had to force Yuuri away from his bedside to let the poor man rest. When the ex-regent finally arrived the next day, Phichit wasn’t that surprised to see it was Celestino, the father figure and coach that he and Yuuri had shared. 

The three of them met for hours to talk about possible actions. Celestino recommended that Yuuri strip JJ of his title of Vice King, but let him keep the Front Palace, as he was still technically family and no one had actually gotten hurt. Yuuri was hesitant at first, but he and Phichit trusted Celestino. Celestino took their terms to JJ, who was hiding at the British consulate for protection. It took a few days of the Vice King refusing, but eventually he realized that those were the best terms he would get, and the British wouldn’t protect him indefinitely. Celestino brought JJ back with him, and Yuuri gracefully stripped him of his title and let him continue to live in the Front Palace with a few guards, promising to let him get some money back after everything stabilized. 

All in all, everything was going as well as could be expected, and Phichit was proud of his best friend for taking small steps to reform the Longka government, although there was still a long way to go. Longka, or rather Thailand, would remain the only southeast Asian country to not be colonized by the Europeans. Phichit also knew there was much more that happened historically here, but for a musical movie, it was sufficient. 

Finally, Victor regained enough strength to walk and talk, and Yuuri took him on a short stroll through the gardens. Phichit obviously spied on them, and was happy to see that they finally got their kiss. Shortly after, the closing musical number began, and Phichit happily joined in on the singing and dancing as everyone again circled Yuuri and Victor, but this time as a couple. Phichit couldn’t have been happier for them, and as the last few lines of the song played, he felt his stomach sink. He had figured that he would have to leave this universe eventually, but he was still sad to see such a fun one end. After the last note of the song rang out, everything went black.

* * *

Phichit regained consciousness and could tell he was sitting down, which was good since he felt a little weak from the presumed universe-hopping that just took place. He looked around to get a bearing on his surroundings.

He seemed to be in a fairly crowded restaurant, the seat across from him empty. This was definitely modern day, or at least a lot closer to modern day than 1874. Shoving a quick hand in his pocket revealed his smart phone, so modern day was probably correct. 

“Sorry about that,” he heard someone say from over his shoulder, and then Yuuri was sliding into the seat across the table from him. “There was a line in the bathroom,” he continued. 

“Totally fine,” Phichit said, giving him a smile. He didn't know what was going on yet, but he would probably figure it out soon. And if this universe was anything like the others, mentioning Victor right away wasn't a good idea. “What were we talking about? I forget,” Phichit said, hoping to just continue whatever was happening before he popped in. 

Yuuri’s face scrunched up in thought. “Oh, that's right! We were making plans for this weekend. When are you free on Saturday again?”

Phichit froze. “Um, probably any-”

_“Yuri, ne zlis’, ya tol’ko khochu pamoch’,”_ Yuuri said suddenly, interrupting him. 

Both of them just blinked for a second. 

“What?!” Phichit asked. 

“Oh sorry, you know how that happens sometimes,” Yuuri said, obviously not as alarmed as Phichit. 

“What do you mean?” Phichit asked, but as his fingers started tingling, he knew he shouldn't ask many more questions about it. 

Yuuri blushed. “You know I get embarrassed talking about soulmates,” he whispered. 

Everything hit Phichit at once. Obviously if Yuuri had a soulmate it would be Victor, so at least the Russian phrase, presumably addressed to Yuri Plisetsky, made more sense than a random language coming out of his mouth. However, the specific word Yuuri had just used was what really made Phichit stop and think, which was impressive, because Yuuri randomly speaking Russian was definitely strange. 

The word “soulmate” stuck out to Phichit, and suddenly he could only think, _This sounds like a soulmate AU from fanfiction, and now everything finally makes a bit more sense._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **Russian/English translations:**  
>  Yuri, ne zlis’, ya tol’ko khochu pamoch’ (Юрий, не злись, я только хочу помочь)- Yuri, don't be mad, I just want to help
> 
> shamarmon- Thank you so much for reading! This is really fun to write, so I hope you all have fun reading it, as well! I cut off a lot of more boring political stuff from the end of the actual history, so hopefully I didn't leave too much of that stuff in! Also my power has been out for a few hours and it just came back, so that's why this is a little late in the day. And while we have a lot of ideas already, if there’s a specific genre of fic you’d like to see in the future, please let us know! 
> 
> **This will update every Thursday night! And every Monday night either Ray or I will post a preview of the upcoming chapter on tumblr!**
> 
> Thank you to Nicole and [NonDairyRay](http://archiveofourown.org/users/NonDairyRay/pseuds/NonDairyRay) for beta-ing and all of the ideas!
> 
> Finally, you can find all of us on tumblr:  
> [Shamarmon](http://captainjazzband.tumblr.com/)  
> [NonDairyRay](http://victorniqueeforov.tumblr.com/)  
> [Nicole](http://zebralightning.tumblr.com/)


	4. Victor Nikiforov Is Definitely Not Yuuri Katsuki's Soulmate

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Phichit enters the wonderful world of soulmate AUs.

“Ah, sorry, I forget sometimes.” Phichit said quickly.

“That's okay! I know your situation is much easier,” Yuuri replied wistfully. “I'm so jealous that your soulmate speaks English. Russian is such a hard language to learn! I have no idea what he's saying.”

Phichit had to think quickly. If he worked with the assumption that this was like the soulmate fanfics he had read in the past, there must be some kind of soulmate identifier in this universe. That identifier was most likely speaking in your soulmate’s language, but not necessarily being able to understand it. He sighed. This was so confusing. 

“...Hey, are you okay? Sorry if I said something wrong. We can talk about something else.”

“No, no, sorry, I don't think I got enough sleep last night,” Phichit lied. Well, maybe not lied - he was a night owl, so hopefully that was still true in this universe. “How have your Russian studies been going, then?” 

Yuuri frowned. “They're okay, but I don't understand why there are so many cases and genders. I really just don't understand.”

“Wow, yeah, that must be so hard. Have you understood anything he's said yet? Or know who he is?” Phichit didn't feel any tingling in his hands, so he figured this was a safe line of questioning. 

“Only my name, but apparently Yuri is a common Russian name too. So I don't think he knows who I am.” Yuuri blushed and looked down at the carpet. “But enough about me, tell me about yours!”

A beat passed before Phichit realized that Yuuri expected a response. 

_Oh, shit._

“Hmm, wow, it’s actually been, like, a while since, uh, they’ve said anything?” Phichit said, hopefully managing to not sound completely clueless.

Yuuri gave him a look.

Clearly, he hadn’t succeeded.

“I thought you said you’d heard something a few days ago,” Yuuri said, adjusting his glasses.

“Uh, yeah, but it’s been a while compared to, like, how often I normally hear them. You know,” Phichit added weakly. 

His fingers had begun to tingle. _Shit, this isn’t good,_ he thought. He needed to fix this, and fast - otherwise, he’d be forced to start over. Before he could say anything else, he felt his mouth start to move, and a someone else’s voice spilled out.

“ _I can’t believe the fucking Metro is gonna start closing at midnight,_ ” the voice said loudly, catching the attention of several nearby tables, who glared at the interruption before turning back to their meals.

Several moments passed before either of them spoke.

“Well,” Yuuri was the first to break the silence. “Why ask you about your soulmate when he can just tell me himself?” 

Phichit giggled. If he had to live through fanfictions, which seemed to be the most likely explanation so far, at least his best friend was in character. He’d miss him otherwise.

“Yeah, wow. So, there you go - a man, sounds American, sounds about our age, if I had to guess.” He pulled out his phone, inputting _arthursbitch_ in the password field. “I wonder, if I google the Metro, can I figure out where he lives?”

Yuuri gasped. “Oh, great idea! He sounded annoyed, so he probably uses the Metro a lot at night.”

Fingers flying, Phichit ended his search on a simple [website](https://www.wmata.com/) stating in large letters _LET’S METRO!_ Reaching over their long-forgotten plates, he held the phone out for Yuuri to inspect. “Do you think this is it? It looks like it could be right.”

Yuuri took the phone, navigating around. “Oh, I think so! Look here, it says they’re going to stop running trains at midnight on the weekends.” He made a face. “That’s so early! How do people go out if they don’t want to drive?”

Before Phichit could answer, faint music that Phichit vaguely recognized as one of Victor’s old short programs emanated from Yuuri’s pocket. 

“Sorry, it’s my advisor, I have to take this.”

* * *

On the walk down Cass Avenue back to their shared dorm, Yuuri spoke Russian again. 

Phichit grabbed his shoulder, accidentally cutting off a small woman with a backpack that looked almost as heavy as she was. “Yuuri, dude, listen. Why aren’t you fluent in Russian yet?”

Yuuri started. “Well, I mean… Russian 1010 doesn’t fit into my schedule, and I can’t really afford a private tutor…” 

“That’s bullshit,” Phichit answered. “Sorry, but don’t you want to understand what your soulmate is saying? I feel like I keep telling you this.” This seemed like something he’d have brought up with his friend before.

A bewildered look was all he got in response. “No?” Yuuri said tentatively. “We don’t usually talk about this a lot, I’m not really sure why we are now, to be honest…” 

“Don’t you want to find clues as to who he is though?”

Yuuri blushed. “Well… kind of.”

“You’re hoping it’s Victor.”

“No way, it’s definitely not him!” Yuuri said.

Phichit sighed for what seemed like the thousandth time in a row. “It’s extremely possible, dumbass, don’t sell yourself short. You’re still Japan’s best men’s singles skater, so you’re definitely on his radar.”

Another blush. “I can’t help it…”

“I know you can’t, but that’s why I’m here. If you can’t believe in yourself, then believe in me who believes that you are worthy of making out with Victor Fucking Nikiforov after the next Grand Prix, which you will definitely qualify for,” he said. Yuuri didn’t need to know that Phichit had basically already secondhand experienced that entire sequence of events in another universe.

“I don’t know where you’re getting these ideas from, but I kind of want you to keep going,” Yuuri responded sheepishly.

“Fuck yeah you do. Alright, now let me tell you about this sweet Victor x Reader fanfiction I read the other day…”

* * *

There were a few things that let Phichit know that this universe was giving him the exact same Yuuri that he was used to, and his stubborn shyness was one of them. Phichit didn’t know why his friend wouldn’t just text Ketty, but he wasn’t going to stop pestering him until he did. In all the other universes he’d been in so far, he’d been able to leave when Yuuri and Victor were sure to get together. Here, though, they were still over a year out from when Yuuri would meet Victor for the first time, and Phichit wasn’t sure he could handle being here that long. If Yuuri and Victor truly were soulmates, they’d get together without his help, but while he was here, he was going to do what he could. 

“Hey, Yuuri,” he called to where Yuuri was sitting at his desk. The only thing Phichit heard in response was the tinny sound of gunfire coming out of Yuuri’s cheap headphones. 

“Yuuri!” he tried again. Still nothing. 

Sighing, he pulled his phone off the charger and opened the Steam app. 

**Kingskater97:** hey yuuri  
**katsukidon:** i heard u the first time im busy  
**katsukidon:** what do u want  
**katsukidon:** im playing tf2  
**Kingskater97:** if i write th tetx to ketty will u send it frmo ur hone  
**Kingskater97:** *phone  
**katsukidon:** what the fuck does that say  
**Kingskater97:** Perchance I dost writest a message to my dear Miss Abelashvili, wilt thou sentest mine message en route via your telecommunications device?  
**katsukidon:** i dont know what that says either  
**katsukidon:** but no i said im not gonna ask her  
**Kingskater97:** hey ketty, long time no see! hope ur classes are going ok! i was curious if u maybe would be interested in doing like a language exchange? i wanna learn russian and i saw u post on fb that u wanna learn japanese - maybe we can trade lesson for lesson?  
**katsukidon:** …  
**Kingskater97:** u gotta admit thats good  
**katsukidon:** fine but you have to come send it yourself  
**Kingskater97:** ok comign

Phichit rolled off his bed and walked the four steps over to Yuuri’s desk, sighing dramatically even though he knew Yuuri couldn’t hear him over the sound of his game. Realizing Yuuri had a lock on his phone too, he tapped his shoulder to ask him to unlock it, but was answered with a quick slap and a muttered “don’t distract me”. 

He rolled his eyes and picked up his phone again.

**Kingskater97:** whats ur unlock code bitch  
**katsukidon:** 122589  
**Kingskater97:** is that for real  
**Kingskater97:** holy shit lmao!!!  
**katsukidon:** shut up

Seven minutes later, the text was on its way.

* * *

“Hey, Yuuri, I don’t mean to interrupt your sick killstreak, but Ketty’s gonna be here in half an hour.”

Yuuri sighed. “This is Stardew Valley, you can’t kill people in this.”

Phichit never could keep track of which game Yuuri was obsessing over _this_ week versus _last_ week, but he supposed he should have known that one. “Have you finished the game? You don’t _know_ that you can’t kill people.” Yuuri opened his mouth to respond, probably unhappily, but Phichit cut him off. “I want you to have time to change out of that horrific ensemble you’re wearing. Ketty’s gonna think you’re homeless if she sees you like that.” Phichit knew he had a much better fashion sense than Yuuri, but sometimes he wondered if his friend wouldn’t just wear solely groutfits if he wasn’t there to help. 

He at least had the decency to let Yuuri finish the in-game day before throwing him an outfit he’d already picked out. 

“Phichit, this is way too fancy for a meeting between friends!” Yuuri said, sounding almost scandalized. 

Phichit scoffed. “No offense dude, but the fanciest thing you own is that awful suit, and even that’s not fancy enough. You need to let me take you shopping sometime.”

“Whatever,” Yuuri responded, grabbing the pile and heading to the bathroom.

* * *

Before they knew it, a loud shave-and-a-haircut knock broke the quiet of their room.

“Hey Ketty, be right there!” Phichit called. Yuuri was pacing around the center of the room again, wearing a path in the nice rug Phichit had bought on sale at Costco. 

As Phichit rolled off his bed to unlock the door, he heard Yuuri curse faintly in Japanese. “I didn’t take my posters down, Phichit! Help me real quick!”

“You think Ketty’s gonna care? You should see her room, she’s almost as obsessed with One Direction as you are with Victor. She even has One Direction underwear.”

“How do you… never mind,” Yuuri said, seeming to think better of finishing that question. 

While Phichit unlocked the door, he tried to remember the last time he’d seen Ketty in his own universe. It had been at least a year, since it was a bit difficult to see his friends in America when he lived back in Thailand. 

As soon as Ketty opened her mouth, though, it was like he’d just seen her yesterday. Her bubbly personality did not let you forget her easily. 

“Hey guys! _Konnichiwa_ , Yuuri! _Sawatdee kha_ , Phichit!” Phichit had always wondered why Ketty hadn’t gone into a language major, since she was unendingly curious about both his and Yuuri’s native languages - and she already spoke five. He also wondered why Yuuri hadn’t immediately thought to ask Ketty for Russian lessons already… but he supposed that was the anxiety talking. _What would he do without me_?

“ _Privyet_ , Ketty, _kak dela_?” Yuuri replied hesitantly. 

Ketty’s face lit up. “ _Bozhe, tvoy russkiy ochen’ khoroshiy_!” she exclaimed back.

Phichit burst into laughter when Yuuri’s face froze in an awkward smile, making it obvious that he had no idea what Ketty had just said. 

“Oh, goodness, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to overwhelm you!” Ketty said, trying to hide a smile. “That means, ‘your Russian is very good’!”

“Clearly, it must not be,” Yuuri replied sheepishly. 

“That’s okay, _bez problem_ , we’ll start from the beginning! How much do you know?”

Yuuri thought for a moment. “Well, I know the basics. Like, how to say hello and goodbye. I can read the alphabet.” He paused, glancing up at the multitude of Victors beaming down at them from the walls. “And I know some skating terminology. But not much else.”

Now it was Ketty’s turn to pause. An even bigger smile slowly crept over her face as she realized the reason she was there. “Yuuri, are you learning Russian to impress Victor Nikiforov?”

If Phichit hadn’t known his friend so well, he probably would have called 911 from how fast Yuuri’s face went from its usual color to bright, fire-engine red. 

“No! Um, no. I’ve actually never met Victor! He’s a much better skater than me, I don’t know if I ever will!” Yuuri babbled. “But, uh… my soulmate speaks Russian. I kind of want to know what he’s saying.” 

“Ohhhh, I understand!” Ketty exclaimed. “You should try to record it so you can show it to me, if that’s okay. I know some people are private about that. But I can tell you what he says if I ever hear it.”

Phichit felt warm as he noticed Yuuri visibly relax after Ketty’s offer. Yuuri made it no secret that he wasn’t comfortable discussing the details of his soulmate with just anyone, so for Ketty to give him a choice straight away was obviously comforting. Maybe he should email Ketty when he made it back to his own universe. Seeing her again, even in another universe, had made him realize how much he missed her.

“Thanks, Ketty, I’d appreciate that. Or should I say, _spasibo_?” Yuuri smiled. 

Ketty giggled. “Look at you! You’ll be practically fluent in no time. Anyway, let’s start with the basics…”

* * *

The next few weeks really tested Phichit’s limit on being optimistic. 

Yuuri had spoken Russian dozens of times, but it never happened when either of them had their phones ready. Although Yuuri and Ketty continued to meet regularly, it never happened in front of her either. Trying to repeat what they heard to her later was beyond the limits of Phichit’s rudimentary Russian and Yuuri’s ability to mimic something he didn’t understand. 

Fortunately, though, there was one bright side to all of this - endless skating practice. Phichit was pleasantly surprised to find that his skating abilities hadn’t gone back in time like everything else; he had shocked Celestino by busting out a quad toe loop the second day of practice. With the high that came with getting a new jump (in this universe, anyway), his resolve had skyrocketed and his practices were going better than ever. 

He supposed that if he did have to be stuck in the past for this long, at least he got extra practice time. If he returned to his own universe at the same time he had left it, then he might even be able to add new jumps to his programs and improve his score. He had been expecting to get sixth place solely because his base score was not as high as the other five men, but if he could nail a quad in a combination, he might have a chance.

Celestino’s voice booming across the rink shook him from his thoughts. “Phichit, if you’re just going to stand there and not practice, at least make yourself useful and record Yuuri’s Salchow for me.”

“You got it, coach!” He grabbed his phone from the collection by the door, and skated over to where Yuuri and Celestino were working. 

Crouching down on the ice, he started the recording and cued Yuuri. He could tell before Yuuri even took off that he didn’t have enough momentum; he only made it through a little over three rotations before crashing down on the ice, a loud Japanese curse immediately following. 

Just before Phichit went to stop the recording, though, Yuuri turned to him and said “ _ya znayu, shto on udivitel’nyy figurist, no moi pryzhki luchshe_.” followed immediately by “oh my God!”

* * *

Two hours later, they both sat in Ketty’s room, trying not to sweat on her furniture. As excited as they were to finally have a recording of Yuuri’s soulmate’s voice, Celestino wouldn’t let them out of practice early and Ketty couldn’t cancel a private lesson she had scheduled. 

Ketty replayed the video again, wincing as Phichit’s tinny screech burst from the phone’s speakers.

“Honestly, Yuuri, you _are_ an amazing skater,” she said, smiling. 

Yuuri leaned even further forward in his seat. “What? What did he say?”

Ketty sighed. “Well, I’m not sure how to tell you this, but -”

“Oh my God,” Yuuri interrupted loudly. “I can’t believe it. He’s dying. He probably has terminal cancer and I’ll never get to know him.”

“Um, no, he -”

“He’s a monk in the middle of nowhere in Siberia who wants to be celibate forever.”

“I didn’t -”

“He’s probably racist! Or a weeaboo! How am I supposed to live happily ever after with a racist??” 

Phichit had had enough. “Yuuri, holy shit, let her finish. Remember, it’s not worth worrying about until…” he trailed off, waiting for an answer.

Yuuri sighed. “...until I know for sure. Okay. Sorry, Ketty. Go ahead.”

Ketty looked wide-eyed at the exchange. Taking a deep breath, she continued. “Anyway, what I was going to say is that he’s talking about figure skating. He said ‘I know he’s an amazing figure skater, but my jumps are better’, which sounds like he actually _is_ a figure skater.”

A beat of silence passed. 

Phichit was the first one to speak. “Wow, Yuuri, I can’t believe Victor Nikiforov is actually your soulmate.” _Ooh, shocker._

Yuuri turned even redder than he had before, which Phichit didn’t even know was possible. “Of course he isn’t!” he squeaked. “He’s probably just talking about doing it as a hobby!”

Phichit frowned. “How many people do you know that skate as a hobby that can do jumps?”

Before Yuuri could answer, Ketty interrupted, “Sorry, guys, as much as I really want to know everything about this, I have a workshop soon, so I have to kick you out. I’ll text you when I’m done, though, if you want.” 

Yuuri sighed and sank back in his chair. “Yeah, definitely. I think I want to work on my Russian more too.”

* * *

“Yuuri, God, at least try to pretend you're covering me,” Phichit snapped as he died yet again. 

“Well, maybe I wouldn't have to do so much work if you’d stop fucking overextending!”

Phichit would never dream of speaking to anyone the way he was currently speaking to Yuuri outside of a video game. That was the beauty of friendship, he supposed, that two people could play Medic and Sniper and still get along in real life. 

“I still can't fucking believe you’re on a Highlanders team, it's like you're trying to miss them on purpose!”

“Well, _ya znayu, Yakov, ya slushayu_ , and you can go fuck yourself too,” Yuuri raged, not realizing he was still set to team chat.

“Rush B, _suka blyat_!” one of their teammates responded immediately.

“You know what? Get fucked asshole, Pyro is for people who can't fucking aim, so maybe go get good and you’ll be able to actually participate next time.”

Normally, Phichit would have returned to spawn by now so he could safely reach over to Yuuri’s computer and press the mute button, but this time, he was too busy focusing on the one word he had picked out from Yuuri’s Russian outburst.

“Yuuri, wait, didn't you say Yakov? Isn't Victor’s coach named Yakov?” Phichit said eagerly, forgetting again that they were both still on team chat. 

“LOL, whose name is Yakov? Sounds like some weird buffalo or something,” one of the Soldiers on their team responded. 

Luckily, the match had ended by this point, so Phichit had no problem removing them from the game as Yuuri countered with, “Well, you know what?” He was so glad he always forced Yuuri to let him be the group leader. 

His headphones being aggressively removed from his head snapped him back to the real world. “What the hell, dude, be careful!” he snapped.

Yuuri sighed and backed off. “Sorry man, I got carried away again.” Phichit nodded, accepting his apology. “Anyway, what did you say before you disconnected us?”

Phichit exited out of the game, tilt already forgotten. “Well, what I _said_ was, isn't Victor's coach named Yakov? You said that in the sentence you said during the match.”

Yuuri froze. “Wait, did I?”

Several minutes later, after rewatching the last few minutes of the game that Phichit had recorded, they had indeed confirmed that Yuuri had said the name Yakov. 

“See, I told you! I said Victor was your soulmate!” Phichit insisted, still not quite believing that Yuuri was so dense.

Yuuri, on the other hand, was so red he put even fire trucks to shame. “I said Yakov’s not an uncommon name in Russia either! Just like Yuri and Victor!”

“When are you going to realize that maybe this is real? It’s actually happening!” 

Yuuri looked away. “I mean… maybe when I magically don’t have anxiety anymore and can actually hope for things without knowing I’ll get depressed if they don’t happen,” he said, low and quiet.

Phichit was shocked into silence, recognizing that he’d pushed too hard.

“Yuuri… I’m sorry. I won’t bring it up again if you don’t want me to,” he said quietly.

“No, I just… can you maybe just quiz me on vocab?”

* * *

Days later, the entirety of the Detroit Skating Club was sitting in the bleachers huddled around Phichit’s iPad, which was currently streaming the press conference following the European Championships. At least, it was trying to. The wifi in the club was notoriously spotty. 

“Come on, stupid iPad, connect! I’ve logged in three times already!” Phichit grumbled.

Yuuri wasn’t even sitting down; he was pacing a few meters away. “Phichit, please, I want to watch this live!” he said.

“Is the stream region-locked?” a younger skater asked. 

“No, this is from CSN, it’s an American channel!”

“Do you think I have 30 seconds to go pee before it starts?”

“Try refreshing!”

Phichit slammed his hand on the bleacher to quell the commotion. “Can y’all shut up while I get this to work?”

One of the junior skaters giggled and held up her iPhone, panning from Phichit to his iPad before zooming in on Yuuri, who was still pacing. She accompanied her video with a commentary of “ladies and gentlemen, I present to you Victor Nikiforov’s biggest fangirl, who is currently upset because he can’t watch him live.”

Yuuri looked over unhappily, but before he could say anything, the stream finally started. Phichit hissed “pay attention, Jenna” and tried to grab her phone, but they both stopped when they heard a deeply accented voice say “I’m proud of how I skated today, but I have a lot of work to do before Worlds”. Which was followed immediately by the exact same sentence coming from the iPad. 

Yuuri clapped his hands over his mouth. All twenty-some skaters fell silent immediately. 

The end of the video, which Celestino had to confiscate to stop it from being posted immediately, featured Phichit shrieking “ _I cannot believe she got that on video!_ ”

* * *

That evening, shocking absolutely no one, involved Phichit and Yuuri having a heated argument about what to do with the video. Yuuri wanted to forget it ever happened, even with solid proof that Victor was indeed his soulmate. Phichit, of course, was dead set on contacting Victor and sending him the video. 

“No, Phichit, don’t!” Yuuri choked out around Phichit’s leg, which was currently pressing uncomfortably against his neck as they wrestled for control of Yuuri’s phone. 

“I’m - oof - gonna do it!” Phichit said, trying to hold both of Yuuri’s wrists with one hand as he tried to type in Yuuri’s unlock code with the other. “I’m gonna do it if it - urgh - kills me!”

“If you do it I actually will kill you!” Yuuri said, sounding muffled.

Phichit finally maneuvered into a position that left both his hands free and trapped both of Yuuri’s, and decided he’d feel much better about contacting Victor if he had his friend’s consent. “Why?”

“Why what? Why do I not want you to contact him? Well, for starters, he’ll probably think it was faked somehow and that I’m a stupid clingy fanboy,” Yuuri grumbled, unsuccessfully trying to free his hands.

“Come on, Yuuri, I’ll even send it from my account and you can pretend I made it up without you knowing if he gets mad!” Phichit pleaded.

Yuuri stopped. “You’d do that?”

Phichit nodded solemnly. “What else are friends for?”

“...fine, go ahead,” Yuuri said.

Phichit handed Yuuri back his phone and unlocked his. “What do you think I should contact him with?” he asked.

“I don’t know, doesn’t he have a publicist? Can’t you just email them?” Yuuri replied, adjusting his glasses from where Phichit’s elbow had bent them.

Phichit sighed. “Do you really want your first interaction to be through a paid professional?” Yuuri shook his head. “Hmm… how about instagram? He uses that a lot and we’re already mutuals.”

“You what?! Victor follows you??” 

“Um, duh. I’m the social media king of the ISU. Everyone follows me.” Phichit preened.

That earned him a smack on the head. “Well, sorry, I wouldn’t know that, your Highness.”

“If you ever used the accounts I made for you, you would! Now, let me type this out and I’ll let you proofread it before I send it.”

Yuuri snorted. “Oh, you’ll _let_ me? Thank you so much, Highness, you are too kind”

They sat in silence for a minute while Phichit focused intently on the DM. He knew he had approximately 47 seconds before Yuuri started getting anxious again, so at 43 seconds, he held out his phone for Yuuri to see. 

Yuuri blushed a little as he read the message and saw the attached video. “I can’t believe Jenna was going to post this on Youtube…” he said quietly.

“I know, right? It’s like she doesn’t even respect that I’m your best friend and therefore I get dibs on all viral content relating to Katsuki Yuuri,” Phichit responded. “Anyway, I’m gonna send it. He just posted something, so he should see it pretty quickly.”

By then, Yuuri had migrated over to his bed and laid face down on his pillow. 

“I’ll let you know what he says, try not to suffocate before then.”

A muffled moan was the only response.

* * *

Twenty two minutes and twelve seconds later (not that he was counting), a notification informed Phichit that he had received a DM. He shrieked, scaring Yuuri so badly he almost fell off the bed, and rushed over to Yuuri’s side of the room. 

“Look, look, he answered!” he shouted, shoving the still-locked screen in Yuuri’s face.

“Oh my God,” Yuuri moaned. “Read it for me, I don’t want to look.”

It took Phichit eight tries to type in his password and three tries to actually open instagram. He swore he could hear an angelic choir singing Handel’s Messiah as he navigated to the messages tab, and…..

“Yuuri, this is all in Japanese, I can’t read it.” _Damn it._

Yuuri rolled over and silently took the phone, only opening one eye halfway, as if to brace himself for the inevitable rejection. Phichit watched impatiently as a blush slowly colored his face and he opened his other eye. 

Finally, the anticipation was too much. “What does it say?? You know I can’t read kanji, don’t make me suffer like this!”

Yuuri mumbled something into the pillow.

“I can’t hear you when you’re being avoidant, Yuuri.”

“He said he’s so excited to meet me and wants to fly out here as soon as possible to get to know me more,” Yuuri said into his hand.

Phichit had no response. This had worked out even better than he’d thought.

“But, hmm, how come he’s so good at Japanese? I’m gonna ask.”

The response was sent before Phichit could recover enough to help Yuuri with his tact.

“Oh, he already responded. And he corrected my Russian grammar…”

Phichit’s stomach lurched. _Ahh, finally._ Peering over his friend’s shoulder, he just barely made out Victor’s response, written in English, before his vision went black. “Of course I know Japanese! My soulmate speaks it, after all.”

* * *

Phichit woke up in a hotel bed. He laid there for a moment, confused, before he realized that he’d been allowed to move on to the next universe in the series. _Finally! I can’t believe I spent almost two months there…_

He rolled over and checked his phone, as per his normal morning routine. He had dozens of Facebook and Whatsapp messages from his friends and family from every corner of the globe, wishing him luck on his short program today. _So this must be right before a competition,_ he thought. He looked around the room for something that would let him know at least what country he was in. Spotting an information binder on the table across the room, he grudgingly rolled out of bed and dragged himself over. 

_Ah, okay, we’re in China._ Double checking the date on his phone, he thought this seemed like the same setup of the Cup of China he’d been to in his own universe - nothing seemed different or out of place. 

_What’s this universe going to throw at me?_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> NonDairyRay: Sorry this is a bit late X_X but thanks again for reading y’all! I work Thursday nights and I had to close last night, so I figured I'd wait to finish this when I was a bit more conscious. I wanted this to be a little more Phichit-centric than we’ve done in past chapters, since our favorite social media king needs some love. 
> 
> After reading this, you might ask “well, Ray, why didn’t they recognize Victor’s voice? Both Yuuri and Phichit have no doubt seen countless Victor interviews” to which I say yes true, but the plot was much easier to write if they didn’t recognize his voice. So they don’t!!!
> 
> Anyway, next chapter will kick off the E rating of this fic, so here’s your warning! We’ll definitely remind you, but be ready for anything B) I mean, be ready for anything except like, actual sexy smut lol. And while I’m talking about future chapters, make sure to let us know if there’s any kind of fic you’d like to see Phichit experience!
> 
> Lastly, shoutout to Shamarmon and Nicole for being fantastic betas and idea generators, and also preventing me from putting too many memes in this chapter.
> 
> You can find us all on tumblr:  
> [NonDairyRay](http://victorniqueeforov.tumblr.com/)  
> [Shamarmon](http://captainjazzband.tumblr.com/)  
> [Nicole](http://zebralightning.tumblr.com/)


	5. Paper Thin

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Phichit is now in a seemingly normal universe, sent back to the Cup of China. But, little does he know, he is about to learn just how thin hotel walls are.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> shamarmon- So this chapter is actually Explicit, but not sexy or smut! You’ll figure out what I mean by that when you read haha. Please enjoy!

Phichit took a deep breath and picked his phone back up. He sent a quick text to Celestino asking when he had to be at the Beijing rink. Luckily, he still had a few hours, so he decided to give Yuuri a call. It was probably best to see what strange things were going on here right away. 

Yuuri picked up after a few rings. “Hello?”

“Yuuri! What’s up?” Phichit asked.

“Um, nothing? Just getting ready for the short program,” Yuuri said. 

“Oh, okay, great,” Phichit said. Nothing seemed abnormal yet. “Are you looking forward to skating?”

Yuuri grunted. “Not really, I’m really worried! What if I mess up and everyone sees those pictures that you posted of dinner?”

“What pictures?” Phichit asked, already picking up his phone and scrolling through his photos. He stopped on the picture of a mostly naked Victor hugging Yuuri at hot pot. But, Phichit thought, at least he was making a good face in it, which is probably the reason he posted it. “Oh, those pictures. Uh, my bad!” he said with a chuckle. “But at least you had Victor hanging all over you!”

“He’s just my coach, as I’ve already told you,” Yuuri said, sighing. “There’s exactly a 0% chance that he’s interested in me.”

Phichit sat up. “No, there’s not! Come on, Yuuri, you’re sexier and more attractive than you give yourself credit for! Victor is totally into you!”

Yuuri laughed. “Yeah, right.”

“I’m serious, Yuuri. Victor would be lucky to have you.”

“You’re just saying that because you’re my best friend,” Yuuri said quietly. 

“And as your best friend, it’s my job to be honest with you, right?” Phichit asked. “I’m being honest, just keep yourself open to the possibility of Victor liking you, okay?”

“Well, okay,” Yuuri agreed. “But only because I think it’s impossible!”

“Great, then there’s no risk to you, right?” Phichit said, smiling. “I’ll see you at the rink later! Good luck!”

“Good luck!” Yuuri said back, and then they both hung up. 

Phichit showered, put on his short program outfit, and then made sure his makeup was on point (because alternate universe or not, he had to look his best). He gave himself a wink in the mirror, then met Celestino in the lobby. 

As the two of them walked to the rink, Phichit’s mind was running wild. On the one hand, he was excited to be competing again, even if it wasn’t his own universe. On the other hand, he had _no_ idea what this universe would do to him. He had a suspicion that he was living through fanfictions, but he didn’t know enough about this situation to guess what kind of fic he was in. For now, all he could do was go with the flow and hope for the best. 

Once at the rink, he said hello to Yuuri and apologized for the pictures that he posted, but he found he wasn’t really that sorry, especially since he knew he would make it up by getting him together with Victor at some point. 

When it was finally time for him to perform “Shall We Skate?” he found himself skating much better than before. He wasn’t sure if it was the time off, the extra practice, or the fact that he had now literally lived this song, but he came off the ice with a new personal best, even including the Grand Prix Final from his own universe. 

Celestino proudly clapped him on the back when they sat down in the kiss and cry. “I haven’t seen you skate like that ever, Phichit! Did something change?”

Phichit just smiled. “I’m just feeling really good, Ciao Ciao!”

“Well, that’s good! Skate like that tomorrow and you’ll make the Grand Prix Final for sure!” Celestino said. 

Phichit gave a few quick interviews, then ran to watch Yuuri skate. The Eros performance was still incredibly sexual, and Phichit couldn’t help but laugh at the return to normalcy. He didn’t mind the small break from the craziness of his universe hopping. 

Yuuri’s score was just a point higher than Phichit’s, but at the end of the competition, Phichit had hung on to second place. He was happy to see Yuuri succeed, but when he turned to congratulate him, he saw him shaking like a leaf. With a sigh, Phichit remembered just how anxious Yuuri had been the first time this happened, as he wasn’t used to being in first place. 

Phichit reached over and gently touched Yuuri’s arm. “Hey, Yuuri, are you okay?” 

Yuuri smiled thinly. “Yeah, I’m great,” he said with no feeling. 

Phichit frowned. “You don’t sound great.”

“Sorry, sorry, I’m just feeling really anxious and nervous and everything now,” Yuuri said. “I’ll be fine by tomorrow.”

Phichit knew Yuuri well enough to know when he was lying, and this was definitely one of those times. However, he also knew Yuuri well enough to know when not to push it, and this was also one of those times. “Okay, well, get some sleep, and I’ll see you tomorrow! I won’t go easy on you,” he added with a wink, and Yuuri waved goodbye as Victor led him away.

Phichit let Celestino take him out to dinner, even if it was only a salad, and then he went to bed early, but not before sending Yuuri a quick text wishing him luck with both the skating and Victor. The next morning Yuuri was about in the shape Phichit expected, but he also knew that Victor would handle it (and whether he did a good job or not was constantly up for debate). Phichit decided to focus on his skating, and it was a welcome feeling to be back on the ice and in front of a crowd. He performed his heart out and scored yet another personal best, Celestino beaming as he half-heartedly reminded Phichit that he wasn’t in the Grand Prix Final yet. Phichit hardly cared, instead turning to watch Yuuri’s skate. 

He could tell that things were still the same as the real universe, as Yuuri’s eyes were red from crying, but at least Victor was still watching him skate like he was the only person in the world. 

Yuuri still attempted the quad flip, still fell, and Victor still tackled him on the ice in a kiss that Phichit was fortunate enough to actually get pictures of this time around. He wondered if this was going to be the end of this universe, but his stomach felt fine, so he figured he still had work to do. After a few minutes Phichit, Yuuri, and Chris were herded to the middle of the ice for the medal ceremony. Phichit felt just as proud holding his gold medal here as last time, and he took a moment to be selfish and think about himself in this crazy journey. He felt immense pride at the way he was representing his country, and he knew that any life he touched made everything worth it. 

The moment didn’t last, though, because as soon as the cameras were down Yuuri was dragging him into the bathroom. “So you saw Victor kiss me,” Yuuri said before anything else. 

Phichit laughed. “Yuuri, I think everyone in the world saw that. Neither of you were particularly subtle about it.”

Yuuri groaned and covered his face in his hands. “Oh my god. You’re right. I’m sure even my _mom_ saw it.”

“Don’t worry about it, okay?” Phichit said, touching his arm. “But now do you believe me? That Victor likes you?”

“I guess so,” Yuuri said grumpily, still hidden behind his hands. 

“I know so,” Phichit replied. “So what’s your plan now?”

“My plan?” Yuuri asked, peeking out from behind his fingers. 

“Yes! Like what are you gonna do with him?” 

Yuuri gulped. “Do? Oh my god, you mean sex, right?”

“What? No! Yuuri!” Phichit said. “Don't freak out, okay? You don’t have to do anything you don’t want to.”

“Oh,” Yuuri said, looking down at the ground. 

Phichit smiled slyly. “Do you _want_ to have sex with him?”

“Yeah,” Yuuri whispered. 

Phichit was a little surprised to hear Yuuri be so outright about it, but it was a pleasant surprise. “Oh, that’s good to hear. So then go for it! Do you know what to like… do?”

“Yeah,” Yuuri said with a small laugh. “I’m not exactly a virgin, Phichit.”

“No judgment either way,” Phichit said, holding his hands up. “I just want to make sure you’re good to go. You know, no glove no love and all that.”

Yuuri sighed. “Yeah, I just need to go to a drug store, I wasn’t exactly expecting this.”

Phichit wanted to scream at Yuuri that he definitely should have been expecting this with how Victor was literally trying to nakedly hump him last night at dinner. He also would be surprised if that was the first time Victor had blatantly made a pass at Yuuri, but luckily now Phichit was here. Instead of going off, he took a deep breath and said, “You can just borrow my stuff? I don’t expect I’ll be using it unless I find future bae in the next few hours.”

Yuuri’s eyes lit up. “Really? Thanks Phichit, you’re the best!”

“I know, I know. Just come by my room later. And don’t get too crazy,” he said with a wink.

Yuuri laughed. “No promises.”

* * *

Phichit made it back to the hotel first, probably because he didn’t have a new Russian boyfriend hanging off his arm, so he got changed for dinner and scrolled through Instagram until Yuuri came knocking on the door. He reluctantly put down his phone, where he was crafting the perfect “Congratulations on your relationship” post complete with a full collage of every possible picture of Yuuri and the Victor posters back in Detroit, including the infamous “drunk Yuuri stripping for Poster #8” picture. 

“Thanks,” Yuuri said as Phichit slipped him the little case of supplies that he was always optimistic enough to bring with him. 

“No problem,” Phichit said with an easy smile. 

“So, uh, this is your room?” Yuuri asked. 

“Yeah, duh, why?” Phichit replied. 

“Oh, no reason. So, thanks! I’m meeting Victor in the lobby for dinner,” Yuuri said. “When do you leave?” 

Phichit realized that he had no idea. “Uh, I forget, I’ll ask Ciao Ciao at dinner, though.”

“Okay,” Yuuri said, a strange look on his face. 

“Is something wrong? You don’t look okay,” Phichit said, suddenly feeling concerned. 

“No, it’s nothing,” Yuuri said, smiling. “I was just thinking about something weird, but it’s probably fine.”

“Okay? Weirdo,” Phichit joked. 

Yuuri laughed. “I’ll see you in the Grand Prix Final!” he called over his shoulder, waving as he walked to the elevators. 

Phichit waved back and then went back to his perfect Instagram post. He had just posted it when Celestino picked him up and took him to dinner. Much to Phichit’s disappointment, he was still relegated to salad, but at least this time Celestino didn’t swat his hands away from the bread in the middle of the table and their waiter was a cute tall guy with dark hair. _Small victories,_ he thought. 

As they were walking back to the hotel, Phichit remembered that Yuuri and Victor were already together, and he was still here. He thought back to the previous universes, and he was always sent back as soon as they became a couple, or realized their feelings, or whatever it was they needed to do. He wondered why he was still here, especially when it seemed like he couldn’t do anything else to help them. They were already going to get busy tonight with Phichit’s indirect help, so there wasn’t much else he could really do. Unless he needed to wait for that to actually happen? He shoved that thought out of his mind as soon as it arrived, too creeped out to consider his best friend having sex with someone in any detail. 

He was brought out of his thoughts by Celestino opening the main hotel door for him. “We have an early flight tomorrow morning,” Celestino said as he led them to their floor, “So you have a strict curfew of 10pm tonight!”

Phichit sighed and fixed Celestino with his best pair of puppy-dog eyes. “But coach! I’m done skating!” 

“No you aren’t,” Celestino said, obviously unswayed. “If you qualify for the Grand Prix Final, which I think you will, there’s still a lot more practicing to be done, and you can’t afford to take a day off, especially when we have to lose so much time to travel.” When Phichit opened his mouth to respond, Celestino continued, “And yes, that means I expect you to be on the rink the night of our flight, and I won’t take jetlag as an excuse. So get to bed nice and early tonight.”

Phichit frowned but nodded. As much as he hated the idea of practicing after a long flight, he knew that every minute on the rink would improve his ability, and he could probably even come back to his own universe a way better skater than when he started this absurd journey. 

Still, he felt more than a little cooped up just sitting in his hotel room. He caught up on Twitter and Instagram and then quickly ran out of things to do, and he had too much residual energy to go to sleep. With a sigh, he fell into bed and considered just listening to podcasts until he eventually fell asleep. However, before he could pick one, he heard the door to the hotel room next door slam shut rather forcefully. He perked up at the noise from sheer boredom, even though he had no intention of listening in to whatever the inhabitants were doing. 

Tearing his attention away from the sound, he continued refreshing the same few apps until he heard a loud moan coming from the same room. He froze and almost dropped his phone. It was almost like there wasn’t a wall between the two rooms, it was that loud. He tried not to blush at the incredibly intimate sound and quickly looked for a podcast to listen to instead of the couple apparently getting busy next door.

Phichit finally found an episode of “Welcome to Night Vale” that he needed to listen to and rummaged through his backpack for his headphones. With a start, he realized that he asked Celestino to hold them at the rink and never got them back. Another loud moan came from next door and he decided that as unfortunate as it was, he could make do with his shitty phone speakers. 

He began playing the episode and tried to relax, but the sounds from next door were getting louder and louder. It was also impossible to not pay any attention to them, as they cut right through his podcast. 

After a few more minutes of attempting to ignore the lewd sounds, Phichit finally gave up and moved to the wall, raising a fist to knock on the shared wall and warn the noisy couple to mind their neighbors. But just before he could bring his fist down, he heard “Victor” moaned (still loudly) in the same voice as before. 

Phichit muttered “fuck this, fuck no,” under his breath, grabbed his phone and key card, and practically ran out of his room.

He didn’t get more than a foot away from the door before he was busted by Celestino and a case of rotten luck. “Phichit? What are you doing out of bed?” Celestino asked, his hand on his own door across the hall. 

“Um, just going to hang out in the lobby!” Phichit said. 

“It’s 10:30,” Celestino said with a frown. “And that's past your curfew.”

Phichit cursed under his breath. For a moment, he considered telling Celestino why he was really leaving, but telling his coach that he could hear the people next door having sex was the second most embarrassing thing he could think of, and the first was Celestino finding out that Yuuri and Victor were the ones next door. 

“Ah, I guess you’re right,” Phichit said with a sigh. “I’ll go to bed.”

“Good,” Celestino said. “Remember, we have that early flight and you have to practice.”

Phichit nodded. He couldn’t help thinking that it made a little more sense to just sleep on the plane, but if he really was in a fanfiction, the setup didn’t always have to make sense, unfortunately. “Hey, Ciao Ciao, you wouldn’t happen to still have my headphones, would you?” he asked. 

“Oh, I think I do, just wait a second,” Celestino said. He disappeared into his room for a minute and then came back with Phichit’s headphones. “Now get to bed! And don’t let me hear you sneaking out! This hotel has very thin walls!” he said, wagging his finger. 

Phichit just gulped and waved, walking back into his own room. He almost cried tears of happiness holding his headphones, because he could already hear Yuuri and Victor going to town when he was just standing at the door. He flopped down on his bed and put his headphones in, then turned them on. 

“Powering off,” he heard. 

He frowned. He just turned them _on,_ not off, right? He tried pressing the power button again. 

“Powering on. Connected. Low power. Powering off.”

Phichit’s heart sank. Those goddamn bluetooth headphones required a charge and were on all day! He knew he didn’t bring any other headphones or the charger with him, and right now all he could think about was how he had never been more burned by technology than at this moment where the only thing he could hear was “You’re so good for me, Yuuri.” Phichit buried his head in his pillow and screamed. 

Almost immediately he got a text from Celestino that read “I hear you, go to sleep.” Phichit almost screamed again. _He can hear **that** but not **them?**_ He took a few deep breaths and tried to get himself under control. He could do this, it was just like being in college, people had sex in adjacent rooms all the time. It would be a while, but they had to stop eventually, right?

* * *

“It’s been half an hour,” Phichit whispered into his pillow. “Oh my god Yuuri, can you just stop already?” What worried Phichit most was the fact that other than some moans and odd phrases, he hadn’t actually heard anything too bad yet. He was no stranger to sex, and much to his dismay, it sounded like Yuuri and Victor were only getting started. Belatedly, he realized that if this was indeed a fanfiction, and even remotely like the ones he himself had read (but kept bookmarked privately), this could take a while. 

Regardless of how loud he played his podcast, he couldn’t drown out their breathy moans, and he eventually had just given up and tried to occupy his mind with literally anything other than the sound of his best friend having sexy time with his coach/ boyfriend. 

He was successful for approximately a minute, until he heard, “Mmm, Yuuri, you taste so good.” 

Phichit’s eyes shot open and he had to resist the urge to set himself on fire right then and there. “Oh my god, oh my god, this isn’t happening,” he whispered to himself. 

“Victor, that’s, ah!” Yuuri called out. 

Phichit started counting out loud to not lose the last bit of his sanity that remained. “One, two, three, four, five,” he started.

“You’re opening up for me,” Victor said, loudly.

Phichit took a shaky and deep breath in, then released it slowly. “You can do this, Phichit,” he said out loud. “Just don’t think about the fact that Victor is literally eating Yuuri’s ass next door. You’ll get through this.” He was finding that talking helped take his mind off the horror that was his life at this moment, so he continued. “You’re still in Longka. You just finished skating, and you get a kick-ass wardrobe for free, and you get to eat delicious food every day.”

“God, you're so perfect,” Victor called out. 

“Nothing weird is going on,” Phichit said to himself. “Don’t listen to that. Focus on something else. The King and the Skater. Think about that instead.” He started reciting the movie’s dialogue line by line. Arthur had just been sent back in time when he heard a new sound. A high pitched wail cut across the room, and Phichit couldn’t help but pay attention, to his horror. 

Everything was quiet for almost a minute except for ragged panting from next door, and Phichit could barely bring himself to breathe. _Is it over? Thank god…_

“You can move,” Yuuri said, loudly, because why would you be quiet in a hotel, right? 

Phichit started muttering every curse word he knew in English and then Thai when he just couldn’t think of anything that quite described how much he loathed the universe at this moment in time. Both Yuuri and Victor were grunting, and then a tell-tale creaking of the mattress started. It honestly sounded like they were going at it on a bed specifically made to amplify the sounds of sex. Phichit briefly contemplated throwing himself out the window. 

He pulled out his phone again, but unfortunately, there were no results when he googled “what to fuckign do when your best friend is gettin some in the hotel room next door that has paper thin walls and your being held hostage by your figure skaitng coach.”

“I hate everything about my life at this moment,” Phichit said, talking to himself again. “I hate that this hotel has the worst walls and beds ever made, and I hate that Celestino is being so weird about our flight tomorrow. I hate whoever invented fucking bluetooth headphones and got rid of headphone jacks on phones. I hate the fact that I just thought about the fact that Yuuri and Victor are using my own condoms and lube right now, and that I played a part in making this nightmare happen. I hate that I'm single and listening to my best best friend get laid. Most of all, I hate whoever sent me on this trip through universes because living through this moment is killing me more than that shitty King and the Skater porno that I lied to Yuuri about never watching. I can only take so much.”

When he was done his little monologue, he noticed that the sounds were much quieter. He hoped for a second that they were finally done, but he didn’t really expect any kindness at this point. 

As he predicted, they were far from done. “Why did you stop?” Yuuri asked, breathless. 

“I want you inside me, Yuuri.”

Phichit almost groaned. He didn’t know why he expected any less from this nightmare of a universe. 

“Not yet,” Yuuri said, and Phichit almost didn’t recognize the suddenly sexy voice coming out of his best friend, as he had certainly never heard it before. “You have to ask in Russian.”

Phichit’s eyes widened. _Oh my god please don’t tell me they both have language kinks._

_“Voydi v menya,”_ Victor said breathlessly. _“Pozhaluysta!”_

Phichit was incredibly thankful at that moment that he never taken Yuuri up on joining in on his Russian lessons. But he still regretted being around the last universe for long enough to recognize the word “please.” Thankfully Ketty’s lessons didn't include dirty Russian (at least around not around Phichit, he would never judge Yuuri for learning that in secret), so now he couldn’t understand what was going on. 

He heard Victor cry out and start panting, and he thought, _Well, I don’t understand what they’re saying, but unfortunately I can still guess what’s happening._ The mattress started squeaking again, and Victor continued spouting Russian. 

Phichit chuckled, then started laughing maniacally. “This is my life,” he said. “Somehow I made choices that brought me here, listening to these two bang each other in a language I don’t even speak.”

_“Ya khotel tebya ves’ den’,”_ Victor cooed. 

Phichit sighed. “Yes, Victor, I know you love Yuuri’s dick. The whole goddamn hotel knows at this point.” What Victor was actually saying was beyond him, but anything that kept him from going crazy was worth doing at this point. 

_“Dayte mne khuy,”_ Victor panted. _“Trahni menya!”_

Putting on his best Russian accent, Phichit translated to himself, “Yuuri, oh yes, just like that!” He giggled to himself. _Maybe I’m going crazy. But I guess that’s a natural reaction to this situation. Fuck it, I can do whatever I want._ “Give it to me harder, Yuuri, I don’t want to walk tomorrow!” Phichit said. “I’m so loud all of Russia will hear how good you’re giving it to me,” he said, somehow losing track of what a Russian accent actually was and turning it Italian. 

_“Mne nravitsya kogda ti trogaesh menya tam,”_ Victor said, and Yuuri grunted in response. 

“Here we have the Russian male begging for his boyfriend’s cock,” Phichit deadpanned, holding his phone to his mouth like a microphone. “If you listen closely, you can hear the sound of him ‘getting it good.’ Neither of them seems to show any indication of the fact that we’re observing them.” He was quiet for a moment, and sure enough, the headboard was now slapping against his wall. “The use of the Russian language plays off of Katsuki’s lifelong crush on Nikiforov, his idol. Despite not speaking the language, it turns him on, something we never needed to know, but know anyway.”

Victor moaned again, then said, _“Motto hayaku.”_

“Ah, now we hear Nikiforov speaking Japanese, and this is a phrase I know all too well,” Phichit continued. “Katsuki would often yell this at me when I was running late for practice. It means ‘faster,’ so it would appear that their speed is just too slow for him. Let’s listen to see if their pace has increased.” He was silent for a moment, and sure enough, the headboard was hitting the wall faster than before. “Yes, it would seem that they’re now going faster.”

_“Ii yo ne?”_ Yuuri asked, panting with exertion. 

“Now, I’m afraid that I’m not experienced enough with Japanese to know what Katsuki has said here,” Phichit said. “But we can use some context clues to guess that he’s checking on Nikirofov’s condition.”

_“Hai,”_ Victor said.

“Seems like he’s doing just fine,” Phichit said. “Good to hear, literally. And obviously that was rhetorical, this is the worst moment of my life, including that time my one-night stand came after only 5 minutes and then stole my last bagel and my poster of Johnny Weir. Now, these two have been going at it for almost an hour total. Is there any chance they’ll be stopping anytime soon? Let’s go to the desk to see.” Phichit could feel his sanity draining away, but at least time was passing as he turned his head and started speaking in a British accent. “Katsuki has incredible stamina on the ice, and it would appear that it translates to the bedroom, as well. They’re not showing any signs of fatigue, so we could be in for a long night.”

_“Ikitai,”_ Victor said in a high voice. Yuuri murmured something, then Victor shouted and everything went silent. 

Phichit held his phone back up to his mouth and whispered, “It would seem Nikiforov has orgasmed. Still no word on Katsuki’s condition, let’s wait and see,” fake British accent already forgotten.

After a minute, a few whimpers broke the silence. “Come for me, Yuuri,” Victor said. “You’ve been so good.”

“Ah, it seems he’s close,” Phichit said. 

_“Iku._ Where do you want it?” Yuuri asked quickly. 

“My face,” Victor replied immediately.

“We are witnessing some kinky shit tonight, ladies and gentlemen,” Phichit said as he heard Yuuri groan and then go silent. “Who knew that Katsuki and Nikiforov were like this? Certainly everyone in the vicinity knows now, as neither of them has mastered the art of ‘silent sex,’ or even ‘quiet sex’ for that matter. Now, are they done?” He waited for a few minutes, but there were (blessedly) no more sounds from next door. “Yes, they’re done for now, probably cuddling after a long and loud session of lovemaking. I’m Phichit Chulanont, signing off before they get it up for round two.”

He put his phone down and sighed into his pillow. _Have I lost my mind? Probably. Will I ever recover from this? Probably not. Will I…_ He didn’t finish his thought, as he felt his stomach start to lurch. He almost started crying in joy. _I get to leave this nightmare! Thank you! Thank you!_

He heard Yuuri say, _“Ya lyublyu tebya, Victor.”_

Victor chuckled and responded, _“Ai shiteru yo, Yuuri.”_

Phichit would have found it cute if he also hadn’t listened to the two of them fuck for the last hour, so he just thought a final _thank you_ as everything went black.

* * *

Phichit woke up in an empty room. Mostly, he was just ecstatic to be away from Yuuri and Victor’s loud sex, so he hugged himself and took a minute to mentally recover. He was sure that the next time he saw either of them, he wouldn’t be able to look them in the eye. Either that or he would give them a long lecture on hotel sex etiquette. Or just punch them in the face. Or maybe he would just break into tears. Who knows?

With a sigh, he gathered his thoughts and looked around the room. He was in someone’s bedroom; a teenage girl’s, by the look of it. The walls and floors suggested a traditional style Japanese home, so he guessed he was in the Katsuki family’s inn, but he had no memory of this particular room. He silently cursed himself for not taking Yuuri up on every single offer he’d ever made to let him stay at the inn. Maybe if he’d been here more frequently he’d have a better idea of where to hide until he could figure out what was happening. 

Regardless of where he was, he knew one thing for certain: nothing could be worse than what he just experienced. 

Little did he know just how wrong he was.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **Russian/English Translations-**  
>  Voydi v menya- Enter me  
> Pozhaluysta- Please  
> Ya khotel tebya ves’ den’- I’ve wanted you all day  
> Dayte mne khuy- Give me dick  
> Trahni menya- Fuck me  
> Mne nravitsya Kogda ti trogaesh menya tam- I like it when you touch me there  
> Ya lyublyu tebya- I love you
> 
> **Japanese/English Translations-**  
>  Motto hayaku- Faster  
> Ii yo ne?- Isn’t that good?  
> Hai- Yes  
> Ikitai- I wanna come  
> Iku- I’m coming  
> Ai shiteru yo- I love you
> 
> shamarmon- Thank you so much for reading! I literally cannot believe that I wrote this chapter, it’s not even smut but I was still blushing like crazy the whole time! I hope I could make you laugh!
> 
> **This will update every Thursday night! And every Monday night either Ray or I will post a preview of the upcoming chapter on tumblr!**
> 
> Thank you to Nicole and [NonDairyRay](http://archiveofourown.org/users/NonDairyRay/pseuds/NonDairyRay) for beta-ing and all of the ideas, and thank you Ray (and Google) for the dirty Russian and Japanese!
> 
> Finally, you can find all of us on tumblr:   
> [Shamarmon](http://captainjazzband.tumblr.com/)   
> [NonDairyRay](http://victorniqueeforov.tumblr.com/)   
> [Nicole](http://zebralightning.tumblr.com/)


	6. It's a damn good thing Phichit loves Yuuri so much

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Phichit finds an AU that is somehow even worse than the previous one.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Mild content warning for a passing comment about self-harm/suicide

Phichit took in his surroundings, trying to determine where he was _this_ time. He was in someone’s bedroom; a teenage girl’s, by the look of it. The walls and floors suggested a traditional style Japanese home, so he guessed he was in the Katsuki family’s inn, but he had no memory of this particular room. He silently cursed himself for not taking Yuuri up on every single offer he’d ever made to let him stay at the inn - maybe if he’d been here more frequently he’d have a better idea of where to hide until he could figure out what was happening. At any rate, whatever girl lived here probably wouldn’t be happy to find a confused looking Thai boy in her room, even if he _was_ extremely handsome and charming. He shuffled across the threadbare pink rug and quietly slid the door open, only to walk directly into -

“Phichit-kun? What are you doing here?”

“Mari-neesan?” _Shit._ How was he supposed to come up with an excuse if he didn’t even know what year it was? “Umm, I was… just… surprising Yuuri. You know. I was in the area and decided to drop by.” Hopefully that was good enough.

Mari frowned. “And you were in my room… why?” 

_Shit shit shit._ “I, uh, thought this was Yuuri’s room… it’s been awhile since I’ve visited, you know…” Phichit had no idea if this was true or not but he’d just have to pray to the skating gods (who no longer included Viktor Nikiforov, thanks very much) that she’d believe him.

She gave him another exasperated look and sighed. “You were in town? From Detroit? ...that’s fine, I guess, I understand. He’s not home right now, though, but he should be fairly soon - he and Vicchan are just finishing up at the rink. He usually gets home around 4.” She moved past him and not-so-gently pushed him out of her doorway. “I’m getting dressed to go out later, so go hang out somewhere else while you wait.”

“Ooh, you got a hot date tonight, Mari-chan?” 

“It’s Mari-san to you, Phichit-kun. Bye.” The door rattled shut and was immediately followed by muffled boy band music. Ah well.

Phichit decided to take the opportunity to poke around and re-familiarize himself with the layout of the inn and onsen before Yuuri and Victor got home. His exploration didn’t reveal any guests or occupied rooms, so he assumed this must be the off season. _Good_ , he thought, _less people I have to figure out how to deal with_. Strangely enough, he saw no sign of Yuuri’s parents, either - his ballet teacher had been in the common area, drinking with a couple other guests while watching sports news, but no one was back in the Katsuki family’s wing of the inn. 

He heard a door slide open and, hoping it was Mari, turned back down the hallway. 

“Hey, Mari-san, are your folks home?” he called. 

“No, they’re out for the night too, so don’t expect anything fancy for dinner. You’re not that special,” she replied, sliding on a pair of heels at the door.

Phichit’s stomach dropped. “Oh… okay, that’s cool, maybe we’ll go out too.” He didn’t like where this was going. 

“OK, do whatever, you don’t need me to babysit.” The door slammed shut behind her as she jogged to the car waiting out front. 

Phichit stood there in shocked silence. Hearing that Yuuri’s family were all going to be out for the evening, during the off season… From what he’d been able to gather from his glance through the rooms, he had dropped in right before the 2015 Grand Prix Final. If Yuuri was at the rink with Viktor, that probably meant things were mostly the same as the original universe. Which meant that Yuuri and Viktor were still in, to put it politely, their honeymoon stage. He shuddered. Maybe he should try to intercept them before they got too far and see if he could make it out without having to witness anything R-rated. 

He lost himself in strategies and planning for a while, sitting at Yuuri’s desk, coming up with ways he could possibly explain why he was in Hasetsu and not Detroit where he should be. It was amidst the conception of one particularly excessive plan that he heard voices coming down the hallway, and they definitely did not sound like voices that wanted to talk to Phichit right now.

“Mmmh, Vitya, _hai,_ yes…” Was that _Yuuri?!_ His panic was momentarily lost while he processed the shock of hearing that voice come out of his best friend. He hadn’t even talked like that in the last universe. 

“Yes, _dorogaya,_ do you like that? My big, thick meat rod pressing against your abs?” _What. The. Fuck._ Viktor’s interesting choice of words shook Phichit back to reality, and he quickly realized there was no way he was escaping this room before the happy couple walked in. He darted into the closet, hiding behind a couple of large CedEx boxes. This looked safe enough, so Phichit made himself as comfortable as he could and checked his pockets again for earplugs - not finding any, of course, but it never hurt to be sure. The one blessing (or was it a curse?) about this whole situation was that Yuuri had left his closet doors wide open, and his bed was on the opposite wall, so if Phichit got lucky he might be able to slip out without being noticed. 

This train of thought crashed in a ball of flames as Viktor carried Yuuri through the doorway, chest to chest, hands on his ass, the whole nine yards. And Yuuri… wasn’t… wearing pants. Wonderful.

“Vitya, yeah, just like that, stick your finger in my love hole,” Yuuri purred, and it was a good thing Viktor was making ungodly grunting noises because Phichit made an equally unattractive sound trying not to laugh. Love hole? _Really?_ Was this a bad porno AU?

The bedsprings squeaked as Yuuri was apparently thrown onto the bed, followed by the sound of Viktor following him. They were mostly silent for a few moments, enough that Phichit poked his head out from behind the box. And immediately wished he hadn’t. He was greeted with a view of Viktor’s pale white ass and balls facing him directly as he knelt at the foot of the bed, presumably eating ass. 

“Yuuri, _moya lyubimaya,_ your pucker hole is twitching,” Viktor said into Yuuri’s asshole. Phichit thought he might die. “Are you ready for me to hide the salami?” 

“Yes, yes, _hayaku,_ quickly!” Yuuri whimpered. Phichit, for the love of all that was good, could not make himself look away. This was like that time he had gone with his father to his office in the city and there had been a massive wreck at the intersection just outside. He wondered which was worse, because honestly, he didn’t know anymore.

Loud smacking brought his attention back to the current disaster unfolding in front of him. A small bottle of shampoo - _shampoo??_ \- had been cast aside, and Phichit could smell the artificial vanilla emanating from the scene. Viktor had moved on to smacking Yuuri’s tight globes with - _wait, what? Where did that come from? Am I a fourteen year old fanfic author discovering smut for the first time??_ Viktor was smacking Yuuri’s ass with hands that honest to God looked like they could palm a watermelon. Just one of his hands seemed to reach across one entire ass cheek and a good bit on to the other - with an unpleasant jolt, Phichit realized they reminded him of those terrible BL manga he used to read on the internet when he was still figuring out how to be into men.

An uncomfortable realization was dawning. He’d assumed this was his own personal purgatory already, maybe a punishment for his excessive Instagram posting of Viktor and Yuuri’s private moments and relationship updates… but now he was positive he'd seen all of these scenarios before in the Viktor/Yuuri RPF he’d found that one time, including this terribly scripted sex scene, if you could even call it that. 

At least he didn’t have to try to wingman this time - Yuuri and Viktor seemed to have that under control already. He breathed a sigh of relief, which was followed immediately by a pins and needles feeling in his fingers. _Shit._ Panic quickly rose in his stomach as his brain flew into overdrive, trying to think of excuses on why he was hiding in Yuuri’s closet listening to him loudly having sex with his celebrity boyfriend rather than asleep in Detroit where he should have been. 

“Did you hear that, _krasivyy mal’chik?”_ The wet slapping noises slowed and stopped, eliciting a high pitched whine from Yuuri. Phichit didn’t dare to even think about breathing, which of course made him light-headed and even more panicky. A moment passed while Viktor shuffled around the room, checking outside the window and in the hallway. Phichit couldn’t tell where he was going next, so he resigned himself to waiting here to be discovered. How did they not hear his heart beating?

“Vitya, come back!” Yuuri moaned from the bed. “It’s probably nothing, and even if someone was watching, I wouldn’t mind.” Phichit gagged. _“Vitya no chinko wo namete mou ii?”_ Phichit recognized exactly two of those words and he absolutely did not want to know what Yuuri wanted to do to Victor’s cock. Unfortunately, a moment later, a loud slurping sound clarified exactly what it was that Yuuri wanted to do. The only saving grace was that the tingling in his fingers subsided, signaling that the danger of being caught had subsided. 

He only had a moment to relax before a loud moaning let him know that Victor had just climaxed. A string of half-formed Russian curses drifted into the closet, and Phichit started earnestly looking through the closet for a knife or stiletto heel or _something_ he could use to put himself out of his misery. It was a shame he’d never gotten the chance to compete in the Grand Prix Final, but he didn’t think any number of gold medals was worth having to sit through this disaster.

“Mmh, _sakhar_ , your cavern is gaping wide for me,” Victor groaned, smacking Yuuri’s ass. Phichit had half his hand stuck in his mouth in an effort to stay silent.

A high pitched keening sound that had most likely come from Yuuri masked whatever Victor said next, but Phichit had gotten stuck on a thought: 

_Why am I still here?_

He knew for a fact that this universe, this fanfiction, this _whatever you wanted to call it_ did not involve him wingmanning. Like, at all. So why was he still stuck in this godforsaken closet listening to his best friend have weirdly explicit sex? He could only assume this was based on shitty smut fics, since he would bet everything he owned that the real Yuuri would rather die than say any of these lines out loud. Maybe he had to, for lack of a better term, wait until the climax of the story before he could leave.

“Mm, _akachan_ , your cock is weeping again… let me make it feel better,” Yuuri purred, pulling Phichit out of his contemplation. 

Loud wordless moaning once again swept over the room, and Phichit thought it might finally be safe to take a peek to try and see how much longer they’d be, against his rational mind’s protests. Naturally, Victor’s asshole was a prominent sight, but this time there was a large shiny rhinestone where the hole should have been - and Phichit had been on Tumblr long enough to know what that was. 

More importantly, it looked like the two had finally started fucking, which Phichit hoped meant that they’d be done soon. Realistically he knew that if this was based on fanfiction, they would be able to go multiple rounds with abnormally short refractory periods, _but a guy’s gotta hold on to whatever hope he can get…_

“Ah, Vitya, your love rod feels… mmh… _kapriznyy_...” Yuuri moaned.

Phichit almost felt ashamed of using the word “moan” _again_ , but that was really the only way he could describe the noise Victor made in response. Hopefully this strange lack of descriptive adjectives and action verbs only lasted in this universe. 

“ _Eto zavodit menya, kogda ty govorish’ po russki,_ ” Victor moaned. Surprisingly, Phichit caught most of those words, and used his context clues to figure out what _zavodit_ meant. He wished he hadn’t. He could have gone his whole life without learning that Victor apparently had a language kink. Phichit was no stranger to being turned on by sexy accents, but Yuuri had absolutely butchered that pronunciation. He hoped he’d never have to pretend to be turned on by someone speaking Thai with an accent that bad…

“Babe, ahh, I don’t know how you fit that thing inside me… _kyodai_ … ah, you’re hitting at just the right spot!” Yuuri moaned. 

Phichit could only stare in horror. Fortunately, neither Yuuri nor Victor was coherent enough to notice black hair poking out from behind the mountain of boxes, because he was absolutely unable to look away. 

Phichit huddled back down into his nest of discarded clothing and used shipping boxes and settled in for the long haul. He now regretted how satisfied he’d been after the last universe - he’d been so sure the worst was over and done with. Clearly, some deity was not only punishing him for whatever he’d done to deserve this in the first place, but also for presuming to know how these universes worked. He’d clearly been wrong; this was absolutely the worst it could get.

As he dug around in the pile of stuff, looking for something to cover his ears with, he came across a notepad and a bag of markers. _Well_ , he thought, _might as well find the bright side in all this._ He began making a list of all the quotes he could distinguish, writing phonetically when he needed to. If anything, he could use this list to tease Yuuri whenever he made it back to his home universe _and_ assuming he could get his friend to believe him. He didn’t bother thinking about the fine details; that was best left for when he couldn’t hear the best men’s singles skater in the world’s balls slapping against his best friend’s ass.

He’d filled up almost two whole pages with various Russian and Japanese words (including his favorite, _moya chuvstvenaya suka_ ) when he was torn away from it by a sudden stomach lurch. _Oh thank God,_ he thought. He felt like he’d aged about thirty years in the last two hours. Hopefully the stress wrinkles he’d surely gotten didn’t carry over into the next universe, or he’d be spending some of his Grand Prix winnings on some anti-aging creme.

Amidst the smacking and slurping of not only unattractive but unsafe sexual sounds, Phichit felt his soul depart from his body. _Good luck,_ he thought as he drifted away from the physical version of himself. _I'm going to need it._

* * *

Phichit snapped awake to the sharp sound of hands clapping. Disoriented, he mumbled a quick “huh?” as he looked around, taking in his surroundings. He was in a large lecture hall, sitting next to none other than Yuuri. 

At the front of the room, Victor stopped mid-sentence and frowned at him. “Excuse me, ah, in the red shirt? I know this is a large lecture, but I can tell when you’re sleeping. Please at least pretend like you’re paying attention or I’ll be forced to hand out a pop quiz.” 

The students around him shot him a variety of looks ranging from disgust to disdain, but Yuuri stared transfixed towards the front of the room. Without moving his head, he reached over and patted Phichit’s shoulder insistently.

“Phichit, that’s _Victor Nikiforov!_ ”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> NonDairyRay: Apologies in advance to St. Peter who will have to read this chapter when deciding whether or not to let me into Heaven. Anyway, write drunk edit sober, amirite? Quite honestly I had so much fun writing this chapter, even though I had to save most of it for late nights at home because my only other option was writing it at a busy Starbucks on campus, which was absolutely not going to happen. 
> 
> Also, I'm not going to post a list of the translations because (1) they are either self explanatory or unimportant to the plot and (2) all of these except one were google translated on purpose so they're mostly incorrect lol. Don't ever call your Japanese bae "akachan" in bed.
> 
> Anyway, I’m 1000% sorry for any trauma this chapter caused but I hope y’all enjoyed it as much as I did writing it. Shoutout to Shamarmon and Nicole for helping me think of bad porn tropes and making sure I didn’t get too nasty. 
> 
> Next chapter should be a little less _~hashtag messy~_ than this one, but don’t think our favorite boy is off the roller coaster just yet. As always, if you have any particular torture or blessing you would like him to experience please let us know!
> 
> You can find us all on tumblr:  
> [NonDairyRay](http://victorniqueeforov.tumblr.com/)   
> [Shamarmon](http://captainjazzband.tumblr.com/)   
> [Nicole](http://zebralightning.tumblr.com/)


	7. Hot for Teacher

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Phichit is back in college, but Victor's position makes things a little different this time around.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Content warning: Vomit (non-graphic)

Phichit stared ahead blankly. To be honest, he was trying to force the image of Yuuri and Victor banging out of his head, but it seemed burned in his mind. This was the first time he was with them since he listened to and watched them having sex, and he felt a huge swell of emotion coming up from his gut, due to the emotional trauma and general disbelief at his situation. 

No, it wasn't emotion…

It was vomit. 

He ran out of the lecture hall and barely made it to the trash can right outside the door. He hung his head and immediately felt much better as he breathed deeply and calmed himself. He didn't dare to hope that the worst was over, because he had been burned by that before, but he allowed himself to take comfort in the seemingly normal situation. Of course Phichit knew that it was temporary, but Yuuri and Victor had their clothes on for the moment and he was taking that as a blessing. 

He was pulled out of his thoughts by a hand soothingly rubbing circles on his back. “Yuuri?” he asked weakly. 

“Shh, it’s okay,” Yuuri said calmly. “How are you feeling?”

“Better now, thanks,” Phichit said. “Sorry you have to see me like this,” he said, finding it easier to talk to Yuuri when he couldn't see his face. This was more like his best friend and less like the sex fiend he was now very acquainted with. 

“Don't apologize, you've helped me through much worse,” Yuuri said softly. “Just relax.”

Phichit took another deep breath and felt the last of the tension seep out of his body. If he could get through the last two universes, he could certainly get through anything. He finally pulled his head out of the trash can and smiled weakly at Yuuri. “You probably haven't had to do this before, have you?” he asked. 

“Well, not on a Thursday morning, no,” Yuuri said, returning the smile. 

Phichit glanced at his watch. “You don't have to be here, aren't you missing class?” 

“It's fine, don't worry about me,” Yuuri said. “I grabbed our bags, so we can leave whenever. Class is almost over, anyway.”

As if on queue, the doors opened and a stream of students poured out. They were about to walk away when they heard, “Yuuri!” being called out in a Russian accent. 

They turned around and saw Victor jogging towards them. “Yuuri!” he called out again, finally reaching them, and smiling broadly. “Is your friend okay?”

“Oh, uh, yeah, I'm fine, thanks,” Phichit said quickly, trying very hard not to look at Victor below the head. 

“Sorry, professor, for running out in the middle of class,” Yuuri said in a high voice, barely making eye contact. 

Victor laughed. “It's no problem! It was the last few minutes of class, anyway, and your friend’s health is more important. But please, call me Victor, I'm hardly a professor.”

“Um, okay, V-Victor,” Yuuri said hesitantly. 

Victor smiled even wider. “Well, even though it was the end of class, you did miss a little bit of material. Why don't you stop by my office hours tomorrow and I’ll go over it with you?”

Yuuri gulped. “Ah, okay, we’ll be there.”

“Great! Victor said, clapping his hands together. “I'll see you both then!” He walked away and threw a wink over his shoulder.

As soon as he was around the corner, Yuuri grasped Phichit’s shoulders and started shaking him like a rag doll. “Oh. My. God! Phichit!”

“Yuuri!” Phichit said, grabbing Yuuri’s arms to stop the shaking. 

“Sorry, sorry, but oh my god!” Yuuri said. 

“Yes,” Phichit said with a laugh. 

“That was Victor Nikiforov!” Yuuri said. 

Phichit smiled. “I know, Yuuri. Let’s go get some lunch and talk about it.” He started leading Yuuri away, then stopped abruptly. “We don't have class next, right?” he asked. 

Yuuri looked at him with concern. “I thought you said you were feeling okay?”

“Right, right. Sorry, let’s go,” Phichit said, continuing towards the exit. 

Once outside, Phichit realized this was certainly not Wayne State and he had no idea where to go. Luckily, Yuuri seemed to sense his hesitation and took the lead. Before long they were in a dining hall, and Yuuri was pulling them towards the stir fry station. 

Suddenly, Phichit pulled him back. “We can't!” he said. 

Yuuri blinked at him in confusion. “What are you talking about?”

“It's Thursday,” Phichit said. 

“Yeah? So?” Yuuri asked. 

“It's not Stir-Friday,” Phichit said, a huge smile spreading across his face. 

Yuuri rolled his eyes and sighed loudly. “Let's get in line,” he said, pushing Phichit into the mass of people waiting around the station.

Once they got their food and a table, Phichit dug into both his bowl and Yuuri. “So, spill! What was all that with you and Victor?” he asked as soon as he swallowed his first huge bite. 

Yuuri immediately blushed around his normal-person-sized bit of food. “Ugh, Phichit, you know nothing's going on there.”

“Sure didn't look like nothing to me,” Phichit said with a smile. 

Yuuri blushed even deeper. “As much as I would like that…”

“Aha!” Phichit exclaimed, pumping his fist in the air. “I knew it!”

“Keep your voice down! People are looking!” Yuuri whispered, grabbing Phichit’s fist and putting it back on the table. “But yeah, of course you know. I don’t exactly keep it secret from you,” Yuuri said, giving him a strange look.

Phichit felt his fingers start to tingle, so he smiled and waved his hands. “Of course! I just meant, it’s good to hear you say it _again!”_ he said. That seemed to make Yuuri happy, and the tingling went away.

“Well, you know how much his books have helped me,” Yuuri said, staring off into the distance. “It’s a dream come true to have him as a teacher.”

“Right,” Phichit said slowly. “His books.” He would have to do some research on this to make sure he didn’t mess up anything else he should know. 

“Whenever I read a Nikiforov book, I just feel like I can do anything, you know?” Yuuri asked, looking at him again. Phichit opened his mouth to respond before Yuuri just continued, saying, “I don’t know who I’d even be if it wasn’t for his books, and everytime I see him in person I just freeze up and turn into a mess. He’s on a completely different level from me!”

Phichit wagged his finger at his best friend. “Yuuri! That’s so not true!”

Yuuri frowned. “No, I’m…”

“No!” Phichit said. “Yuuri, you are worthy of absolutely anyone you decide to pursue! The question is: Is Mr. Big Shot author good enough for _you?”_

Yuuri blinked. “What? Of course he is…”

“Then there’s no problem, right?” Phichit asked with a smile. 

“Well, there’s also the fact that he’s a teacher at our university,” Yuuri said. 

Phichit thought for a second, then decided to take a leap of faith based on the earlier conversation with Victor. “But he’s, like, barely a real teacher, Yuuri! It hardly counts.”

“I mean, you’re right,” Yuuri said, and Phichit breathed an internal sigh of relief that he wasn’t wrong. “But just because he’s a temporary lecturer doesn’t make it any less weird or wrong.”

“Live a little!” Phichit said. “He can’t be much older than you. If it weren’t for the professor-student thing you wouldn’t have nearly as much of a problem with it!” 

Yuuri bit the inside of his cheek, and Phichit could tell he was winning this argument and Yuuri was actually considering it. Yuuri sighed and said, “Okay, say that I believe you that this is all possible _and_ appropriate. How would I go about wooing my professor?”

Phichit laughed. “First off, you stop saying ‘woo.’ Second, when we go to his office hours tomorrow morning, you flirt with him! I’m sure he’s been flirting with you and you’ve been ignoring him. Poor guy,” he said. 

“He hasn’t been flirting with me,” Yuuri said, rolling his eyes. “I do know how to pick up on that sort of thing, contrary to popular belief.”

“I’ll believe it when I see it,” Phichit said. 

Yuuri narrowed his eyes. “You’ve seen us interact a few times, right?”

“Oh, I mean, yeah, definitely,” Phichit said quickly. 

Yuuri checked his phone. “I have to get to my next class,” he said, putting all of his trash on his tray. “I’ll see you tonight?”

“Yup!” Phichit said, waving as Yuuri left. As soon as Yuuri was gone, Phichit googled “Victor Nikiforov” and read his Wikipedia article. It turned out Victor really _was_ a famous author in this universe. He was especially well-known for his books about finding personal strength, so Phichit could see why Yuuri liked him so much. The end of the article was about how he retired suddenly, citing a lack of inspiration. The final sentence said that he was teaching part-time at the University of Detroit Mercy, which explained why Phichit didn’t recognize the campus more than anywhere else in the city. 

With a start, he realized that he had no idea what his schedule was for the rest of the day. He pulled up his calendar on his phone, and was relieved to see that he was done for the day. Then he could go home and make a plan for…

_Shit. I have absolutely no idea where I live,_ Phichit thought. He typed “Home” into Google Maps and found that it would only take 20 hours and $1,200 to fly home from here. _Great, exactly what I meant,_ he thought as he tried looking for another home address in his phone. Luckily, he found his emergency page and there was a local address there that he could only hope was his own. He plugged the address in and found the 15 minute walking time promising for getting to his apartment, or dorm, or ideally mansion.

He followed the directions to the address, allowing himself to look around at the scenery as he walked. It was a really nice campus, and a few people even waved at him as if they were friends. Phichit realized they probably were friends in this universe, and he happily waved back but was grateful that no one stopped him. 

Finally, he reached the end of the directions, and looked up to see an apartment complex. With a groan, he looked back at his emergency page and saw no apartment number. _This is gonna be fun,_ he thought. He dug around in his pocket and found a single key on a keyring. He held it up to his face but couldn’t find any numbers on it, which was probably good in retrospect, should he ever lose, misplace, or forget the key. And if this universe was anything like his original universe, that was a lot. 

That gave him an idea, and he stuffed the key into his pocket and walked through the door to the apartment complex. Luckily, there was a front desk right there, staffed by a very tired looking young woman. “Hey,” he said, flashing her a smile as he walked to the desk.

She smiled back, but sighed heavily at the same time. “Let me guess, you locked your key in your room again?” she asked, already rummaging under the desk for something. 

“Uh, yeah,” he responded sheepishly. “Sorry about that.”

“It’s just paperwork,” she said, shrugging as she laid out a piece of paper. “Well, Phichit, you know the drill, sign it out and bring it back within 24 hours.”

“Yes, great, thank you,” he said, picking up the pen and scanning the sheet for any indication of his room number. Thankfully, at the very top next to his name was also Yuuri’s name and the number 207. He then looked for where to sign, and quickly found that it was under the other 7 signatures from times he locked his key in his room. Wincing, he saw that all of this happened in the last 2 months. 

Phichit signed with a flourish, then gratefully accepted the key from the woman. “Thanks, I’ll try not to do this again!” he said. 

She just laughed at him. “You say that every time, so I won’t hold my breath.”

He waved and then took the stairs up to the second floor. As embarrassing as it was to sign out a key, it was less so than getting caught trying his own key in every door and maybe getting arrested. Or he could've waited for Yuuri to get home, but he had no idea when that was and it would be the kind of suspicious that could sent him back to the beginning of this universe, and he didn't want to vomit again. He shook that thought out of his head when he got to his door and unlocked it. Stepping inside, it looked a lot like every space he and Yuuri ever lived together in: a little messy, but very homey. There were a few pots in the sink, but they were at least soaking. Blankets were strewn all over the couch and there were 3 shoes and 5 socks on the ground, but Phichit still felt relieved to be in his new home.

He spotted a hamster poster on one of the bedroom doors and assumed that it was his, walking in and throwing his backpack down. It certainly looked like his room, and he booted up the laptop on his desk. After a few minutes of snooping, he determined that he was a linguistics major. He made sure that his schedule was correct in his phone, and he printed out a campus map for good measure. 

Once Phichit was feeling confident in his knowledge of his new life, he crept out of his room and down the hall to Yuuri’s. The door was unmarked, but inside it seemed like every bit of wall space was covered in posters of Victor Nikiforov. These posters were a little different from the figure skating ones (more clothes, less sweat, and more glasses, which even Phichit had to admit made him look like a hot teacher), but this Yuuri was just as dedicated as Phichit’s original Yuuri. Once Phichit stopped staring at the posters, he started looking at everything else. Thankfully, Yuuri had his class schedule hung up on the wall, and Phichit took a picture for reference, noting that he was also a linguistics major. 

Satisfied with his snooping, Phichit sat on the couch and scrolled through his phone, knowing that Yuuri might be getting home soon. His phone took some getting used to, as it seemed to be a little bit old. At one point it froze completely when he was watching a YouTube video. The video kept going, but he couldn’t pause or adjust the volume. Luckily, it didn’t matter at the moment, and he filed it away as a problem for Future Phichit. 

Before long, Yuuri was opening the door and coming in. “I’m home!” he called. 

“Hi!” Phichit said, twisting around to wave from the couch. “How was class?”

“Fine,” Yuuri said, kicking his shoes off and collapsing onto the couch next to Phichit. “I’m just very tired and ready for the weekend.”

“So am I,” Phichit said with a laugh. “But, don’t forget! We have professor hottie’s office hours tomorrow!”

Yuuri groaned and covered his face in his hands. “Don’t remind me.”

“It’ll be fine,” Phichit said. “Don’t worry about it, I’ll help you flirt with him.”

“I was hoping you’d forgotten about that,” Yuuri said, still behind his hands. 

“Not a chance,” Phichit said, smiling. “Let’s practice right now. You be Yuuri, I’ll be Victor.” He took a deep breath, then switched to his horrible Russian accent. “Yuuri, you’re in danger of failing this class. What should I do about you, you naughty boy?”

Yuuri erupted into a fit of giggles. “Oh my god,” he said around his ragged breaths. “That was absolutely horrible.”

Phichit couldn’t help but laugh, too. “See? There’s the worst case scenario right there, so if you can survive that, you can survive anything.”

Yuuri wiped tears away from his eyes. “I can’t think about anything else other than why that’s your default flirty student-teacher interaction. What kind of messed up porn have you been watching?”

“It’s none of your business, young man,” Phichit said. 

“I’m older than you,” Yuuri said.

“Alright, it’s none of your business, old man,” Phichit corrected. He didn’t have the willpower to say that the last few times he watched or listened to people have sex it was Yuuri and Victor. 

They spent the rest of the night doing nothing in particular, and eventually Phichit’s alarm was going off the next morning. He groaned when he turned over and saw that it wasn’t even 8am. “Why does Victor have office hours so early?” he asked no one in particular. 

He managed to get out of bed and look halfway decent by the time Yuuri shoved him out the door, a piece of toast in each hand. They walked to Victor’s building in silence. Yuuri’s silence was probably due to his anxiety, and Phichit’s was due to the fact that he wasn’t 100% awake yet. When they got to the right room, Phichit knocked right away, despite Yuuri’s glare. 

Victor answered immediately with a broad grin. “Hello! Good morning!” he said, ushering them into his office. It was bigger than Phichit expected for a temporary lecturer, but it was really nice. There were beautiful photographs of Russian landscapes hanging on the walls, and a few abstract paintings that Phichit couldn’t contemplate this early in the morning. “I don’t get many people at my office hours,” Victor said, gesturing to two chairs in front of his handsome oak desk. He settled behind it and put his chin in his hands. “It must be because they’re so early on a Friday morning!” he said with a dazzling smile. 

Phichit liked to think that he was an amazing wingman, but all of the other universes at least let him work at a decent time. At the moment, Yuuri was doing this solo, because he could barely keep his eyes open. 

“Ah, yeah, well, we’re here!” Yuuri said with a nervous laugh. 

“Yes, yes, great,” Victor said, smiling at him. “Well, you didn’t miss much yesterday, but I’m glad you’re here. I always find that a more, um, ‘hands-on,’ approach works better with some students,” he said, looking at Yuuri knowingly.

Yuuri just blinked and nodded, but Phichit was slowly becoming more and more awake. _Seriously? How does Yuuri not notice Victor’s flirting?_

Victor explained what they missed, and honestly it was ridiculous how small of a deal it was. If it wasn’t obvious (to Phichit) that Victor was just trying to talk to Yuuri by getting him here, it was now. In only a minute Victor had fully explained the last few bullet points of the lecture. 

By now, however, Phichit was feeling awake enough to participate. “Well, now that we’re here,” he said with a small smile, “Is there anything we should know about the class or anything?”

Phichit had no idea what can of worms he was opening. Victor launched into a 10 minute speech about the beauty of linguistics and how it helped with his writing process, and Phichit felt the tiredness return to his body. At least Yuuri was hanging off his every word and they were wearing clothes. Boring and normal was a welcome change. 

After what seemed like an eternity, Phichit roused himself to pay attention to the last of Victor’s little speech. Victor was so excited that he lapsed into Russian for a sentence, then he caught himself and blushed. “Ah, sorry, when I get too into linguistics I start speaking Russian,” he said with a small laugh. 

“It’s okay!” Yuuri said quickly. “I can speak a little Russian, so I barely noticed.”

Victor’s eyebrows shot up and a slight flush spread across his face. “You speak some Russian? I had no idea!”

Yuuri blushed, too. “Ah, well, I started studying it recently, and I’m taking a class here. I wanted to be able to read…” His face flushed even more, and he stammered, _”War and Peace,_ you know, in Russian.”

Victor nodded knowingly, but Phichit knew when Yuuri was lying. Likely Yuuri just wanted to read Victor’s books in Russian and also impress him. Victor then glanced at his watch and almost jumped. “Oh wow, how time flies when you’re having fun!” he said, standing up. “I have a class to teach in 10 minutes. It was wonderful having you both in, so hopefully I’ll see you next week?” he said, looking at Yuuri through his eyelashes. 

“Oh, um, yeah!” Yuuri said, still blushing. “I wanted to ask you how to improve my writing, anyway. You always have so many comments for me.”

Victor blinked at him, then smiled slightly. “Ah, yes. So many comments. Well, if you come see me again, I’m sure I can help out with that, too! Now, I really must run! Just close the door behind you!” And then he was gone. 

Phichit turned to smirk at Yuuri. “How are you so dense?” he asked. 

Yuuri frowned at him. “I am not! I told you he wasn’t flirting with me!”

Phichit had to hold back a groan. “He was being about as obvious as he can be as an almost professor!” He stood up and grabbed his bag. “We can talk about this more at home, but man oh man do I have to help you get with the program,” he said with a smile. Yuuri rolled his eyes but followed Phichit’s lead. 

When they got back to their apartment, Phichit followed Yuuri into his room. “Okay, show me those essays,” he said, holding his hands out. 

Yuuri gave him a confused look. “What do you mean?”

“Your essays for Victor’s class,” Phichit said, gesturing with his still empty hands. “Let me see all these comments.”

Yuuri dug through his desk until he found the papers and handed them to him. It took Phichit less than a minute to sigh deeply and feel even worse for Victor. “Have you read these comments?” Phichit asked. 

“Of course I have,” Yuuri said defensively. 

Phichit pointed to the margins filled with doodles of hearts. “I’m assuming you didn’t turn your essay in like this?” he asked.

“No,” Yuuri said. “But I don’t see what that has to do with anything. He was probably bored to death reading my horrible writing.”

Phichit sighed. “My sweet, sweet boy,” he said, patting Yuuri on the shoulder. “He is literally flirting with you even when he grades your assignments. Listen to this: ‘I love your sentence structure here, I wonder what other good structures you have.’ Yuuri, honey.”

Yuuri blushed. “What? That’s a totally innocent and normal comment.”

“Um, no, it really isn’t. Here’s another: ‘You have such a big vocabulary, and I bet it’s not the only big thing you have.’ And one more: ‘I’d like to violate your constraints?’ Oh my god, Yuuri, should I be reporting him or something?” Phichit asked, equal parts intrigued and horrified (a now familiar feeling).

“No, don’t!” Yuuri said quickly. “I don’t mind it.”

“But you do acknowledge it’s flirting?” Phichit asked. 

“Um, I don’t know about all that,” Yuuri said, staring at the floor. 

“What does this say?” Phichit asked, pointing to a scribble in the corner that looked just messed up enough to be Russian cursive. 

Yuuri squinted at it. “Victor Katsuki-Nikiforov,” he mumbled after a minute, blushing profusely. 

“See?” Phichit said. “He’s so into you! Like, way too into you for not even knowing you! Like, a little creepily into you!”

Yuuri bit his lip. “Okay, so maybe you could be right, but I still don’t think he actually likes me. He’s probably just playing with me.”

Phichit took a deep breath. _Back in very familiar territory,_ he thought. “Okay, well, why don’t you try flirting back? That should make it clear if he’s just playing around or really interested.”

Yuuri hesitantly nodded. “I-I guess I could do that,” he said. 

Phichit clapped him on the back. “Great! We have an assignment due on Tuesday, right? Why don’t you write something flirty in the margins back to him?”

“That sounds horrible,” Yuuri said with a grimace. “But I can try.”

“That’s the spirit!” Phichit said.

* * *

Tuesday came and went, and surprising no one, Yuuri was incapable of flirting back with Victor on his assignment. Luckily, Phichit had another plan. 

As they were walking to class on Thursday, freshly printed essays in hand, Phichit carefully held his travel mug of coffee. His timing needed to be perfect. They walked in through the front doors of the small lecture hall, and Victor’s face immediately brightened. He waved at them, and Yuuri shyly waved back. 

_This is my chance,_ Phichit thought. He took a quick breath and pretended to trip over his own feet, sending his travel mug of coffee dramatically flying through the air. It sailed perfectly out of his hands and onto Yuuri’s essay. 

Victor and Yuuri stared open mouthed, and Phichit used all of his skating coordination to keep himself off the ground. He stumbled and quickly recovered, then loudly said, “Oops, sorry about that, Yuuri! How does the essay look?” Yuuri just glared at him, and a boy with dark hair sitting in the front row stifled a giggle at Phichit’s “innocent” look.

Victor sighed. “I take it you won’t be able to hand in that essay today, then, Yuuri?”

Yuuri whipped around to face him. “Ah, I’m so sorry!” he said, bowing. 

“It’s quite alright,” Victor said with an easy smile. “I can’t be too harsh on my favorite student!” he said with a wink. “Just print it out again and bring it to my office hours tomorrow.”

“Shouldn’t I just email it to you?” Yuuri asked.

Victor frowned. “Um, no. I mean, I like to have a printed copy to grade. So you definitely have to come in, sorry.”

Yuuri seemed to buy that and shoved Phichit to their seats. Phichit couldn’t have been happier at the turn of events, and he could barely pay attention to the lecture. 

When class was over, Yuuri ushered them out right away. “How could you do that?!” he hissed as soon as they were away from the lecture hall. 

Phichit smiled and shrugged. “I’m just clumsy, I guess,” he said. 

Yuuri rolled his eyes. “Whatever. You have to print my essay again for tomorrow.”

“Deal,” Phichit said easily. 

They managed not to talk about Victor for the rest of the night, and Phichit barely remembered to print Yuuri’s essay before turning in for the night. He felt blessed not having to set his alarm for the ass crack of dawn like Yuuri had to.

However, he was still woken up early by his phone ringing. With a big sigh, he groggily answered. “Hello?”

“Hey, sorry for waking you up,” Yuuri said on the other side. “I’m just, sorta, freaking out.”

Phichit instantly felt awake and put the call on speaker phone, sitting up in bed. “What’s wrong? Who do I have to kill?” 

“No one! I’m worried about meeting Victor! What if I mess it up? What if he hates me?” Yuuri said quietly. 

“Yuuri. He won’t hate you. He doesn’t hate you,” Phichit said in his most reassuring voice. “He totally digs you, and you should totally make out with him in his office.”

Yuuri pretended to gag. “Can you think like a normal person for once?”

“That’s what a normal person would do!” Phichit said, despite knowing no normal people. “Just promise me you’ll be open to getting together with Victor? Just hop on his dick!” Phichit stopped to laugh. “Banging your professor! Yuuri, that’s so dirty!” he said, smirking way too much for before 8am.

“You’re the worst,” Yuuri whispered. “Fine, I’ll consider it, but he’s not interested.”

Phichit smiled. “I think he is, but whatever you say.”

“Oh, shit, he wants me to come in,” Yuuri whispered. “Listen, I’ll talk to you later, okay?”

“Okay, and be safe!” Phichit called out.

Yuuri groaned and there was a loud click.

Phichit put his phone down, feeling satisfied. He doubted anything would happen between them today, especially in Victor’s office, but he was happy that Yuuri was considering that Victor was attracted to him. 

“Good morning, Yuuri!” Phichit heard. He blinked in confusion and glanced around his bedroom, but he was alone, as he should be. 

“Good morning,” he heard Yuuri say in response. With a start, he looked down at his phone, where the call with Yuuri was still going. _Ah, Yuuri must have missed the ‘end call’ button,_ he thought. _Oh well, I can just hang up myself._ He pressed the ‘end call’ button, but nothing happened on the screen. He tapped it a few more times, but the screen wasn’t responding. He didn’t like the direction this was going. 

He heard an audible click, then what sounded like a lock. “I’m going to be straight, ah, I mean, forward with you,” Victor said in a low voice. Phichit and Yuuri gulped at the same time. “I find you incredibly attractive,” Victor continued, “And every time I see you, I think about what you would look like in the throes of ecstasy, coming undone under me.”

Phichit almost gagged. _Who even talks like that?_ Yuuri stuttered out a response that Phichit couldn’t make out, then there was a loud crash. After that, the only sound he could make out was a light smacking noise and moaning. _Oh my god they’re really making out in his office and they are gonna do so much more fuck fuck fuck,_ he thought, desperately hitting the volume buttons on his phone. Unfortunately, it was just as frozen as before. _Past Phichit, Future Phichit is very disappointed in you._

In a moment of genius, he threw a pillow over his phone, muffling the sounds of their kissing. However, the peace was short lived.

“You’re so good with your tongue, Yuuri,” Victor purred, quieter but still audible through the pillow. 

“It’s all those linguistics classes with _good teachers,”_ Yuuri said in a seductive voice. “But here, let me show you what tongue placement would make a low back unrounded vowel,” he said, probably going back to sticking his tongue down Victor’s throat.

Phichit tried not to gag, but so far this was okay. He could do this. Compared to the last two universes, this was nothing. 

In an even greater moment of genius, he realized that there was nothing keeping him in bed, listening to his best friend get in on with their professor. He was fully capable of leaving the room and doing something else. He practically sprung out of bed and went to the bathroom, brushing his teeth and showering. Once he was clean in mind, body, and soul, he went back to his room to change. 

He could still hear noises coming from his phone. Now they were loud slurping noises, and it sounded like Victor was cursing in Russian. Phichit just shrugged, put on a pair of jeans and a t-shirt, then went to the kitchen to make eggs. Eating was a little more boring than usual without his phone, so he read the ingredients on the ketchup bottle to pass the time. 

When he was done, he went back into his room to see if they were done. 

“Bend me over your desk and fuck me until I scream,” Yuuri said with conviction through the phone. 

No, they were not done. 

Phichit went out onto the couch and turned on the TV. Nothing was really on, so he curled up under a blanket and watched the weather channel. 

He must have fallen asleep, because he jolted upright when his stomach lurched. _Ah, they must be finishing up,_ he thought sleepily. He contemplated going back into his room to hear the end of their escapade, but he decided that he had heard enough of their sex to last multiple lifetimes, and he closed his eyes to let the feeling take him to the next universe. His last thought was, _Dammit I never gave that temporary key back to the front desk,_ and then everything went black.

* * *

When he came to, he immediately recognized that he was back on the Wayne State campus. Whether he was here by coincidence or as a student didn’t matter much, as he was just happy to be somewhere familiar again. He glanced around for familiar faces, but he didn’t see anyone he knew. 

_That’s odd,_ he thought. _I feel like I usually start with Yuuri or in a hotel room. But I guess this whole situation is anything but normal._

He pulled out his phone and began searching through it for details about this universe, when he heard Yuuri’s voice behind him. He was about to turn around and respond, when someone else did first. 

He froze in place. The response had been in Thai. And he knew that voice. 

He turned around very slowly, and when he locked eyes with the speaker, he almost fell to the ground in shock.

_Well, fuck._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> shamarmon- Thank you so much for reading! This fic is so fun to write, so thank you to everyone who reads and comments and laughs with us!
> 
> **This will update every Thursday night! And every Monday night either Ray or I will post a preview of the upcoming chapter on tumblr!**
> 
> Thank you to Nicole and [NonDairyRay](http://archiveofourown.org/users/NonDairyRay/pseuds/NonDairyRay) for beta-ing and all of the ideas, and Ray for the linguistics jokes!
> 
> Finally, you can find all of us on tumblr:   
> [Shamarmon](http://captainjazzband.tumblr.com/)   
> [NonDairyRay](http://victorniqueeforov.tumblr.com/)   
> [Nicole](http://zebralightning.tumblr.com/)


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